January 6, 2018
Letter to the Editor: West Lake Landfill misplaced priority for EPA
To The Editor:
Recently, I have read a lot of news regarding the West Lake Landfill, located outside St. Louis, Missouri. The site, which contains trace amounts of nuclear waste, has been a major priority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 1990, according to the agency’s website.
However, through the four previous administrations, no action has been taken to move the site. Now, however, President Trump’s EPA, led by Administrator Scott Pruitt, former Oklahoma Attorney General, is readdressing the landfill and looking for possible “solutions”.
I don’t see how the landfill is such a major issue. If four presidents, including President Obama, who is praised as an environmentalist, completely ignored the site, why should the current administration act?
According to The Washington Times, levels of radioactive elements have been constantly decreasing and have been deemed safe by the agency. Using federal resources to relocate the landfill seems like a waste, and appears to be a knee-jerk reaction from the agency, which is under pressure from the left and various environmental groups.
Administrator Pruitt must ask himself if relocating the West Lake Landfill is really the best use of federal funds. While it may appear to be small victory for the environment, no scientific evidence has proven that moving the landfill would have a positive effect on the natural resources in Missouri.
My solution? Continue testing the site for radioactivity, but don’t throw tax money at a problem that doesn’t really exist. The landfill has been deemed safe and the EPA has taken no action for nearly thirty years, so obviously the left is exaggerating the urgency of the issue.
Administrator Pruitt should ignore pressure from environmental groups, continue scrapping ineffective regulations from the Obama era and focus on environmental issues that are actually putting Americans at risk.
Sincerely,
Will Daugherty
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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CapitolBeatOK welcomes letters to the editor. All submissions should be no more than 400 words and e-mailed to editor@capitolbeatok.com. Please include a contact phone number for verification purposes. All letters are subject to editing. Letters to the editor will remain posted for one week at the editor’s discretion.