Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 13, 2014
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
Residents near the Bridgeton Landfill filed 14 additional lawsuits Tuesday against waste disposal company Republic Services for damages they say were caused by a foul stench that started more than three years ago from an underground fire at the landfill.
The lawsuits representing 34 plaintiffs were filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court. All the residents live in the Spanish Village subdivision and recently rejected a settlement offer of $26,250 per household from a class action lawsuit against Republic Services. About three-quarters of residents in Spanish Village and two other neighborhoods accepted the settlement and signed releases preventing further odor claims.
“The money that was offered in the (class action) lawsuit was not enough to settle all past nuisance claims and all future nuisance claims,” said attorney Daniel Finney, who is representing all the residents in the new cases. “These people didn’t want to give up the ability to sue in the future if things continue as they are or get worse.”
Richard Callow, a spokesman for Republic Services, dismissed the news.
“These are cookie-cutter lawsuits filed by a single attorney whose clients twice rejected a settlement recently accepted by nearly a thousand of their neighbors,” Callow said. “The judge in the case considered the same objections, rejected them and called that settlement fair. We strongly agree with the judge.”
Odors are expected to get worse when construction begins on a barrier between the Bridgeton Landfill and the adjacent West Lake Landfill, where nuclear waste was dumped in the 1970s. The work to keep the fire from reaching the radioactive waste, which was supposed to start in June, has been pushed back for further review by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.
A regional administrator for the EPA has said the plans for the barrier are not complete. The agency but has not provided any details on a construction schedule.
Finney said he expects more residents to file their own odor nuisance lawsuits.