President Trump mentions progress being made on West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton

Bridgeton landfill, West Lake landfill in distance. Taken Oct. 2015
Photo credit (Kevin Killeen/KMOX)

BRIDGETON, Mo. (KMOX) — President Donald Trump gives the Just Moms group some reason to believe the landfill cleanup will happen. 

Dawn Chapman, of the neighborhood group Just Moms pushing for a cleanup of the radioactive West Lake landfill, speaks out after the President recently talked about the Bridgeton landfill...by name.

"President Trump just mentioned our site," Chapman told KMOX. "There were two sites he mentioned that EPA is focusing on. One in Michigan, and then mentioned ours by name. What that does is it gives us and the community a bit more confidence that they're not going to back away from this site...that it's still the priority it needs to be."

Related: EPA Unveils Cleanup Plan for West Lake Landfill

Here's the section of Trump's speech on "America’s Environmental Leadership" where he mentioned the St. Louis County landfill:

"We’ve refocused the EPA back on its core mission, and, last year, the agency completed more Superfund hazardous waste clean-ups than any year of the previous administrations and set records in almost every year.  We have done tremendous work on Superfunds.
"To name just two examples, we’ve made great strides cleaning up damage near a paper plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan — something that was beyond fix-up.  They thought it was never going to happen.  And also, the West Lake Landfill in Missouri."

Last September, the EPA announced plans to remove 70 percent of the radioactive waste from the site.  Since then, they've been mapping and planning.  

The EPA tells KMOX the earliest the actual cleanup could begin is 2021.  

In the meantime, neighbors are still anxious about the smoldering, underground fire at the adjacent garbage landfill. 

Related: HBO Releases West Lake Landfill Documentary
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