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Meagan Beckermann

Bridgeton, MO

Here in Bridgeton, MO Republic Services owns a landfill complex which contains two landfills that lie directly adjacent to each other. The entire complex is called West Lake Landfill Complex.

--One landfill (Bridgeton Landfill) contains an underground landfill fire which is spreading toward the adjacent landfill (West Lake Landfill). West Lake Landfill contains illegally dumped radioactive waste left over from the purification of uranium for the worlds first nuclear bomb under the Manhattan Project.

 --The fire in the Bridgeton Landfill section is releasing toxins (VOC's, Benzene, SO2 and many more) and has been issued many violations for polluting our community. 

--On the other hand, the radioactive waste in the West Lake Landfill section is uncontained, unlined, uncapped, uncovered and in spots lying on the surface. 

--We have excessive asthma emergency room visits, proven cancer clusters (my zipcode has a 300% increase in childhood brain cancer cases)

So anyways, fast forward past A LOT of drama to the fact that our Missouri Attorney General just released his evidence in his lawsuit against the landfill owners, Republic Service. This evidence shows that the radioactive contamination HAS MIGRATED OFF SITE. So, the contamination has leached out of the landfill (which we had suspected but it's still DEVASTATING to hear) and has even been found in the cores of some surrounding tree trunks. Some of those trees lie on private property of which Republic Services has been using soil from to fill in collapsed parts around the fire, we can only pray that the soil was not contaminated because of course if the fire burns radioactively contaminated soil the particles would be released into the air we breath and become logged in our bodies creating havoc. There is the potential for the fire to reach the radioactive waste in as little as 90 days and the only emergency plan we have been given is a brochure on how to "shelter in place" which has not even been distributed to everyone in our immediate community. 

We have been polite, we've begged for help, we've made all the right phone calls, written all the right letters, we even flew to Washington DC (trip paid for by selling t-shirts, magnets and bumper stickers) but Gina McCarthy refused to meet with us even after we got a bipartisan letter from our senators asking for her to meet with us. She ignored their letter, never even replied to our Senators

My community is very scared. Please help us spread the word, we have started a non-profit organization called Just Moms STL. Please have people "like" our Facebook page called Just Moms STL and "join" our Facebook group called West Lake Lanfill.