Brought together by foul odors, South City neighbors fight Veolia’s Sauget facility

It was a particularly beautiful night in the summer of 2023 when Linda Weiner stepped outside to breathe the fresh air, only to smell burning metal. “My eyes started to water, and I started to cough,” she recalls. “I came right back inside. I was so upset by the smell that I couldn’t even enjoy the experience.”

Naturally, Weiner did what any good neighbor would do when confronted with an olfactory intruder: She got on NextDoor and started asking questions.

That night was Weiner’s first introduction to a problem that’s bedeviled parts of South St. Louis for at least seven years now. Whenever the wind blows from the east or southeast, neighbors report a heavy smell that they compare to burning iPhones or an electrical fire. You can smell it in Lafayette Square, where Weiner lives, or in Benton Park, Soulard, Fox Park, and even as far south as Dutchtown. At their urging, U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-St. Louis) asked the EPA to investigate in April of 2023. 

Some neighbors wonder just what they’re breathing in. Weiner thinks of a friend who lives nearby and died of lung cancer, even though she was comparatively young and not a smoker. Says Kathleen Logan Smith, who lives in Fox Park, “The fact we can smell it means it’s in the air. People have reactions—eyes water, throats close up, people have asthma attacks.”

After first connecting on NextDoor, Smith and Weiner have formed an informal organization of neighbors calling themselves Breathe Better STL. The group has focused its energies on the Veolia-owned hazardous waste incinerators just across the Mississippi River in Sauget, Illinois. There are a few reasons for that focus. One, their densely populated neighborhoods of South City are actually closer to the plant than most homes on the much more sparsely populated Illinois side of the river. And two, the Veolia facility was cited by the EPA for violations in 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2021. In 2021, the company asked the EPA to adjust their emissions limit so they could gain compliance. 

In a statement, Veolia defends its record. The French-owned company says it is not the source of the odors. 

“For the past several years, Veolia has been working closely with regulatory agencies and government officials at the local, state, and federal level to respond to concerns on the part of the local community about odors emanating from the industrial area where the Veolia facility is located,” the statement reads. “Veolia, EPA, the Illinois EPA, and other regulators have all investigated the odor issues. Collectively, the results of these investigations have indicated that Veolia is not  the source of the odors, while indicating that the odors may actually be coming from other facilities located nearby, including major chemical operations in Sauget and wastewater treatment facilities close to the Veolia facility. Earlier this year, in response to a complaint alleging Veolia was the source of the odors, Illinois EPA specifically found odors emanating from the PChem wastewater treatment plant adjacent to the Veolia facility, not Veolia. Veolia is now forming a Community Advisory Committee for its Sauget operation to bring the various industries in Sauget together to address the odor concerns and other issues that may be raised by the public.”

The neighbors acknowledge that problems emanating from Sauget go far beyond Veolia. (Considered a regulatory free-for-all going back to its days as a company town named, yes, Monsanto, Sauget is home to more than its share of heavy industry.) The EPA’s recent odor investigation found no fewer than 15 possible culprits. 

But now that neighbors have dug into Veolia’s track record, they’re concerned, even if the facility proves not to be the source of the odor. 

Smith, a former executive director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, notes that Veolia’s incinerators in Sauget are “ancient”; the newest one came online in 1988. Smith sees a disincentive to upgrade: “If you do upgrade, you have to meet higher standards. Instead, we’re locked into the pollution.” 

Breathe Better STL sees a rare opportunity for neighbors to let their voices be heard on the subject. Veolia’s Clean Air Act permit for Sauget is up for renewal for just the second time in the plant’s 40-year history, and the EPA is hosting a community meeting this Saturday at the Jackie Joyner Kersee Center in East St. Louis. 

In a statement, an EPA spokesperson notes that the Veolia facility is located “in a community already overburdened by pollution sources.” The agency noted a previous public meeting in April and the one scheduled for Saturday, saying, “At these meetings, EPA has been and will be listening carefully to all of the concerns raised by the community, including the longstanding concerns about odors. EPA is conducting a cumulative impact study of the environmental and health effects of several facilities in the area around Veolia’s incinerator, and conducted a six-month study of metals emissions from Veolia from June 24, 2021, to March 4, 2022. EPA also conducted a compliance inspection at the Veolia incinerator in October 2020, which resulted in a finding of violation dated September 23, 2021. All of these studies and actions will inform EPA’s decision on the Title V permit.”

Saturday’s meeting starts at 1 p.m., and neighbors are hoping to see good turnout. Says Smith, “This is our chance to ask questions.”

It’s also a chance to show Veolia, and the EPA, that South City residents are being affected, and that they’re ready to push. Says Weiner, “I would like to see the facility in cooperation with their communities. If it costs money to update their equipment, it costs. People should be the priority, not their shareholders—the people who live in surrounding neighborhoods, and who are being affected.”