"The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday ordered an aggressive cleanup of a long-controversial landfill contaminated with radioactive waste near St. Louis, delighting community activists who have fought for such an outcome but angering companies who argue that the agency’s own science called for a more modest cleanup.

“This action reflects President Trump’s commitment to return EPA to its core responsibility — clean air, clean water and clean land,” EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said at a morning news conference of the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Mo., which has lingered on the agency’s Superfund list since 1990. “We believe this decision strikes the right balance, while emphasizing the health and safety of the community.”

Wheeler’s decision is the latest signal that he intends to largely follow the policy course set out by his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, who resigned from EPA in July amid a flurry of federal ethics investigations. Pruitt was eager during his tenure to balance his industry-friendly regulatory rollbacks with a commitment to accelerating cleanups at the nation’s Superfund sites, saying such work was more central to the agency’s mission than combating climate change and helping shift the nation to cleaner sources of energy."

Brady Dennis reports for the Washington Post September 27, 2018. [2]