B H S Inc.

Background/ History

The Bob's Home Service Inc. site, or BHS, is located on the Zykan property at 1251 Muenz Road, about 3 miles southwest of Wright City. The BHS site includes two landfills. The first landfill, known as Area 1, was a 9-acre industrial landfill that operated from 1977 to 1982. The second landfill, known as the Progressive Trench Area (PTA) landfill, was located just south of  Area 1. The PTA landfill was a 3-acre hazardous waste landfill that operated from 1982 to 1985. Many different wastes were disposed in this landfill, including volatile organic compounds, petrochemical wastes, herbicides, pesticides, paint waste and Times Beach flood waste. The hazardous wastes destined for the PTA landfill were stored on containers and tanks before landfilling. BHS operated the landfill under a department-issued Hazardous Waste Facility permit, effective Dec. 22, 1982. 

A sanitary landfill, known as the Zykan Landfill, is also located on the Zykan property, just south of the BHS landfills. The Zykan Landfill operated on approximately 12 acres from 1971 to 1977. This landfill is being addressed under Superfund. A portion of the Zykan property, a 30-acre plot located directly east of the landfills, was sold during a Warren County tax sale on Aug. 28, 2017.

Cleanup Summary

BHS closed the PTA landfill in December 1986 under a department-approved closure and post-closure plan. The site is required to go through long-term monitoring and maintenance activities (post-closure care) because hazardous waste remained in place after closure. Post-closure care includes making sure the ground covering the landfills is not disturbed, testing the groundwater for hazardous waste and removing and properly disposing leachate. Post-closure inspections revealed the compacted clay cap eroding, causing leachate outbreaks. On Feb. 27, 1987, the department placed the BHS landfills and the Zykan landfill on the Registry of Confirmed Abandoned or Uncontrolled Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites, under the name Zykan Property. A Deed Notice, signed by the Warren County Recorder of Deeds in 1988, was placed on the property chain-of-title to notify any potential buyers that the property had been used to dispose hazardous wastes.

BHS set aside a trust fund in order to cover the cost of the post-closure care activities; however, it did not contain enough funds to cover all the costs. In 1989, BHS, the department and the State of Missouri came to an agreement that stated BHS was to pay money into the trust fund until the fund contained enough money to cover the rest of the post-closure costs. Due to bankruptcy, BHS has not made these payments since 1990. By 2001, the trust fund was nearly empty. Several of the larger companies that disposed their waste in the PTA landfill voluntarily put money into the trust fund. In 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave the department a Brownfields grant to help cover sampling and investigation costs. Currently, BHS contractors are carrying out general maintenance at the BHS landfills as funding is available.