Source: http://www.stltoday.com, November 19, 2014
By: Blythe Bernhard
There is renewed concern about a potential for increased odors from the Bridgeton Landfill with the weather turning colder. Residents say smells associated with the smoldering underground fire that were first noticed nearly four years ago can get worse when temperatures drop and wind blows from the north.

A new report shows that odor filters installed by the landfill’s owner Republic Services over the summer were only partially effective at reducing the smells. The report from an Ohio engineering firm was required by an agreement between the landfill company and the state attorney general in a lawsuit over environmental violations.

The filters, installed in August and shut down in October, worked at reducing the release of hydrogen sulfide but failed to lower the concentrations of some other sulfur compounds that cause odors. The filters alone are not enough to fix the smells coming from the landfill, and other technologies are being studied for effectiveness, according to the report from SCS Engineers of Cincinnati.

Republic Services operates its own odor monitors around the landfill and studies residents’ odor complaints to the state Department of Natural Resources. Only 5 percent of the data collected can be linked to noticeable odors caused by the landfill, according to the company. In a recent statement, the company said that “the vast majority of odor complaints received from the community are determined to have originated from non-landfill sources.”

A spokesman for Republic Services did not specify what other sources might be producing smells in the area. The Champ landfill in Maryland Heights has previously been targeted as a potential cause of odors, but residents say they can tell the difference.

Republic Services agreed to pay several million dollars to homeowners in August to settle a lawsuit regarding the odors. About three-quarters of residents in the 400 homes closest to the landfill agreed to the settlement of up to $26,250 per household.

Robbin Dailey, who has lived in nearby Spanish Village since 1999, said she and other residents were insulted by the suggestion that their complaints were inaccurately tied to the landfill. Dailey said she last filed an odor complaint with the state about a week ago for the burning chemical-like stench that has come and gone in the neighborhood for the last four years. The smell is noticeably different from a garbage dump or the smell of rotten eggs, she said.

“It’s the same smell we have been smelling. We don’t need them to tell us what we’re smelling and what we’re not smelling,” Dailey said. “We’re flustered over it. We’re just hopping mad.”