Clay Urges House Subcommittee to Support Transfer of West Lake Landfill to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Statement
In testimony before the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment and the Economy, Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay (D) Missouri laid bare the 74-year old legacy of nuclear waste in the St. Louis area, and the responsibility of the federal government to clean up their own mess.
His appearance was in support of HR 4100, bipartisan legislation, which Mr. Clay cosponsored with Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R) Missouri, that would transfer primary authority over West Lake landfill from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Formally Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), which is already hard at work cleaning up nuclear waste at several locations in the St. Louis area. Identical legislation has already passed the U.S. Senate by a huge majority.
In his testimony Congressman Clay noted in part:
"We have a clear and unavoidable responsibility to finally clean up West Lake landfill. The bill before you was crafted with strong grass roots support from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Just Moms St. Louis (whose courageous founders are here today); and many other civic environmental activists to address a 74-year old nuclear legacy in St. Louis which has subjected families to fear and suffering for far too long.
Unbelievably, this radioactive, toxic mess dumped illegally at West Lake 43-years ago, is held in an unlined, limestone landfill.
Near the Missouri River; near a major hospital; near Lambert St. Louis International Airport; near schools and interstate highways; and, most troubling of all is the appalling fact that 1,000 of my constituents live less than a mile away from this illegal nuclear waste dump.
The truth is that if you searched far and wide across this country
It would be almost impossible to find a dumber, more dangerous, more completely irresponsible place to dump nuclear waste than West Lake Landfill.
A few months ago, this identical legislation, introduced by my Missouri colleagues, Senators Blunt and McCaskill, was embraced and approved by a huge bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate.
Congresswoman Wagner and I introduced HR 4100 as a companion bill on the House side, and almost immediately some of the forces who want to keep this nuclear waste in the unlined West Lake landfill, ganged up to stop it.
I am greatly disappointed that this common sense bill has been delayed, obstructed, and even deliberately misrepresented by some staff and certain members of this committee.
My friends, after 74-years of negligence by the United States government, that is totally indefensible.
When the United States government makes a mistake;
When we put citizens at risk;
When we disrupt their lives;
When we destroy the peace and property values in their neighborhoods;
And when we allow the health of innocent citizens to be harmed because of our own inaction
We must make this right.
The United States government created this nuclear mess at West Lake and we have a responsibility to pass this bill and clean it up."
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