Costs mount for Republic Services over burning, radioactive landfill

Republic Services is facing a major increase in costs for dealing with the burning, radioactive Bridgeton landfill near St. Louis, according to a new report.

The company's mismanagement and refusal to deal honestly with the problem at Bridgeton hurts investors as well as the local community and workers, the report concludes.

The Teamsters, who represent Republic Services employees, issued a statement:

“Today’s report highlights how Republic is risking investors’ money and the public’s safety by mismanaging the clean-up in Bridgeton, Missouri,” said Robert Morales, Director of the Teamsters Solid Waste, Recycling and Related Industries Division. “The report raises a question that we all should be asking Republic – is Bridgeton just the tip of the toxic landfill iceberg?”

The nuclear waste remediation has already cost Republic Services $219 million and may cost much more if the Army Corps of Engineers takes over the site. The company's effort to avoid any Army Corps of Engineers' involvement failed, and it is now resorting to such desperate tactics as impersonating the EPA, creating a front group headed by an extremist blogger, opposing radioactive waste cleanup and lobbying the Missouri Legislature to pass a law stripping local authorities of their right to sue.

This is an ongoing and developing crisis, as engineering efforts to control the fire aren't working. Let's hope Republic decides to do the right thing and clean up the landfill instead of trying to deny there's a problem.

In the meantime, Republic Services investors can ask this question and more on Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 5:00 p.m. ET during the company’s first quarter investor conference call. The call can be accessed by logging onto the Republic Services’ Investor Relations page on www.republicservices.com or by dialing (800) 369-3117 or (210) 234-0084, passcode "Republic Services."

Big turnout today at briefing on Bill Gates' exploding nuclear landfill

Today's briefing. Outside, they can smell the stench. 

Bill Gates' exploding nuclear landfill is right now stinking up a well-attended briefing in St. Louis ... about the exploding nuclear landfill.

Trash titan Bill Gates owns about one-fourth of Republic Services, which owns the landfill in Bridgeton, Mo. Today, experts are briefing public officials at Machinists' Hall about the health and safety risks posed by the landfill. Of special concern is the presence of untreated nuclear weapons wastes at the site.

The stench can be smelled right outside the Hall. It's one of the reasons the landfill has been in the news lately, along with its expanding underground fire, a recent explosion and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement this week that it has detected radiation.

According to a press statement from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, the Teamsters and Jobs with Justice:

Radioactive wastes dumped at the West Lake Landfill in 1973 sit in the Missouri River floodplain with no protective barriers between the wastes and the groundwater. The site is located 8 river miles upstream from where drinking water is pulled for more than 300,000 North St. Louis County residents.  

Bob Criss, director of the Stable Isotope Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis and a Missouri River expert, said it's inexcusable that so little is known about the radioactive waste after 30 years.

Few things are as absurd as dumping almost 9,000 tons of waste containing radionuclides, in an unlined landfill, in a floodplain, in a major metropolitan area.

Peter Anderson, executive director of the Center for a Competitive Waste Industry, raised the possibility of a dirty-bomb-like explosion. He called Republic's track record "deplorable."

...there is a very real prospect that lethal material will be released into the atmosphere and groundwater.  

Moreover, in view of recent methane explosions and the fact that pools of methane gas seem to lie in proximity to jet fuels and other accelerants, there is the non-trivial possibility of a dirty bomb scenario. 

Anderson said public officials should hire experts to test the landfill and take charge of fixing its problems. Republic should pay for those fixes, he said.

Marvin Kropp, president of Teamsters Joint Council 13, said Teamsters and their families work at and live around the Bridgeton landfill, and Teamsters around the country work for Republic.

Our experience is that Republic can’t be trusted – it is hurting working families and communities across the country.  We want to see them protected.

And how's this for an irony alert: Gates' foundation aims to eradicate polio around the world ... through improved sanitation.

EPA says Bill Gates' exploding landfill is radioactive

The EPA has discovered radioactivity in the Missouri landfill that exploded last month, but won't say how much.

The landfill, which is on fire, is owned by Republic Services. Sanitation baron Bill Gates is by far Republic's  largest shareholder, owning about 25 percent of the company. 

KMOV reported on Monday that an EPA airplane flying over the landfill near St. Louis detected radiation. Not surprising, since radioactive waste was buried in the site.

Local residents are concerned about foul odors emitted by the landfill. They're also worried about a recent explosion, which was caused by work crews. Only the company didn't want to call it an explosion, preferring "void space with pressurized gas" or "a violent forceful event."

The exploding radioactive landfill tends to undermine Gates' attempt to be seen as "benevolent." Ellie Mae O'Hagan raised questions about his stated objective of eradicating polio in a Guardian column:

Given that polio is primarily transmitted via the gruesome faecal-oral method, one might assume that Gates is committed to excellent standards of sanitation in every corner of the globe. One might also assume, therefore, that Gates also ensures the waste management company he has invested in, Republic Services makes excellent sanitation the only priority of its operation – more important than making profits. 

Alas, if you did make these assumptions about Bill Gates, you would be wrong. For as he jets off around the world to promote polio vaccinations and "environmentally friendly toilet seats", Republic Services is locking out its workers as part of an industrial dispute, a practice which may jeopardise the sanitation of American communities. According to the Teamsters union, which represents the employees of Republic Services, workers have been subject to lockouts for protesting against the destruction of already modest pensions, unpaid overtime, and illegally abandoning contracts agreed upon with the union. In 2012, Republic Services' practice of locking out protesting workers led to stoppages in at least 13 American cities. Teamsters has called on Gates to use his wealth and influence – that same wealth and influence he's planning to use to eradicate polio – to put an end to this dispute. So far Bill Gates has not responded. 

Read more about Republic here at www.pickupthegarbage.com.