Documents show toxic leachate from West Lake Landfill was dumped in the Mississippi River for decades. 

Until last year, Republic Services, the owner of the troubled West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Mo., shipped as many as 200 truckloads of toxic leachate  daily to the Metropolitan Sewer District’s Bissell Point treatment plant on the Mississippi River.

The shipments stopped in April 2015 after the completion of  a 7.2 mile pipeline that links the landfill with the MSD treatment plant in north St. Louis. The pipeline project corresponds with other belated measures taken by the landfill owner and the sewer district to control an estimated 300,000 gallons of noxious liquid produced at the site each each day. The increased levels of leachate are in part due to the underground fire burning at the EPA Superfund site, which is moving dangerously close to nearby radioactive waste.

In 2013, MSD refused to accept leachate from the landfill for several months because it contained high levels of benzene, a known carcinogen. This forced Republic to dispose of the toxic shipments elsewhere.

Odor complaints against the landfill have risen dramatically in recent years due to the underground fire, at the same time public concerns increased due to concerns over the radioactive waste, which is known to have migrated off site and contaminated the groundwater. The landfill is located in a flood plain about one mile from the Missouri River.

Hauling the the West Lake leachate from the site and dumping it into the Mississippi River didn’t develop overnight, however. It’s been going on for more than 35 years, according to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

MDNR records recently released to the Environmental Archives under the Freedom of Information Act indicate leachate was hauled from West Lake to Bissell Point on a daily basis as far back as 1980. The state regulatory agency calculated that an estimated 48,000 gallons was removed from the landfill daily and ultimately released into the Mississippi River.

Prior to last year, the landfill’s leachate operation did not have an onsite treatment plant. The stringency of MSD’s treatment process in the past remains uncertain. It is unclear whether the radioactive materials in the leachate were monitored before disposing of the shipments in the river.