Community members living near a hazardous waste processing facility in the Metro East discussed their ongoing concerns about air quality at a public meeting Monday.
Veolia Environmental Services Technical Solutions is applying to renew its Clean Air Act operating permit for its facility in Sauget for another five years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held the meeting to begin seeking public comment on the permit renewal.
The Veolia facility stores and burns hazardous waste, including propellants and explosives, inorganic waste and other types of hazardous materials, according to the company’s website. It has three hazardous waste incinerators at this location.
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The Clean Air Act requires facilities that emit large amounts of air pollution to apply for operating permits. The permit lays out how much pollution a facility can emit and what the facility will do to control the pollution, according to the EPA.
People living near the facility have had concerns about air quality for years. Terrance Taylor lived at what he called “ground zero” for pollution about 12 years ago.
“Those toxic fumes would come down on me, they would wake me up from my sleep,” Taylor said. “It was horrible. You know, you can’t even go outside and get a breath of fresh air.”
Taylor eventually moved because he did not want his son to grow up in a polluted environment. Now he’d like to see a community committee that could work directly with Veolia to address the concerns.
A representative from Veolia was at the meeting but declined to be interviewed by St. Louis Public Radio.
At the Monday meeting, organizers and others called for transparency and more regular community engagement related to the permit, including direct canvassing of the people living nearby. The EPA said there are about 165 households within a 1-mile radius of the facility.
Deeper concerns about how pollution disproportionately harms communities of color in the Metro East also came up at the meeting. The EPA acknowledges there have been long-standing environmental justice issues in the area.
Other plants in the area also release pollutants, said EPA senior environmental engineer David Ogulei on Monday. Veolia releases more nitrogen oxides than nearby facilities, but it releases less particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants.
In 2021, the EPA found Veolia was violating multiple air pollution regulations meant to control hazardous waste, including the carbon monoxide emission standard, which the EPA said “is an indication that equipment was not properly destroying the hazardous waste that was fed to it.” The EPA lays out issues with the facility in a Finding of Violation issued on Sept. 23, 2021.
The EPA monitored air near the facility from June 2021 to March 2022 and said it “did not detect anything that would have short- or long-term health effects for people living nearby.” The agency said this was the most extensive air monitoring it was conducting in the Midwest at the time.
Still, Dale Wojtkowski said there are a lot of people in the area who are sick and don’t know why. Wojtkowski is president of the American Bottom Conservancy, which has been involved in legal challenges involving the facility.
“On any particular day, they might be able to monitor and say that the air is great, but we know that's not always the case,” Wojtkowski said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also studying the potential health effects of pollution from the facility. In 2019, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth requested the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry conduct a health consultation in Sauget to determine whether the facility is harming the health of the surrounding community. That study is ongoing and will be more in-depth than the EPA analysis.
The EPA will accept written public comment on the permit application until May 15. The facility’s current permit expires on July 18, but the facility can operate until the EPA issues a new permit.
