Wildwood - On a map it looks like a dead zone - undeveloped land amid a sea of homes.

A wooded hill slopes toward a creek, open fields and a horse arena. An old swing set rusts away a few yards from the road.

It's hard to believe that Russell Bliss used to call this area home and that he buried hundreds of 55-gallon-drums filled with pharmaceutical waste beneath it. The pollution became so pervasive that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intervened under the Superfund program for hazardous sites.

Today, the land has been declared safe, and a developer is ready to build 23 homes within the boundaries of the site. It would be the first subdivision to be developed on a Superfund site in Missouri.

A groundswell of opposition, however, persuaded the city to temporarily halt the project in December and to re-evaluate whether the land poses any danger.

"The EPA juggles a lot of interests," said Lisa Martino-Taylor, a Wildwood resident and sociologist at the University of Missouri. "Their primary goal is not always in everyone's best interest."

The EPA maintains there is no problem with the development, called Strecker Forest. The agency paid $6.4 million in the 1990s to clean up the contaminants, which included dioxin. Some city officials contend that they don't have the expertise to challenge the federal agency no matter what doubts they or residents might harbor.

"Both the EPA and state (Department of Natural Resources) signed off on it eight years ago," said Wildwood Mayor Ed Marshall. "I don't know that we can go after state and federal authorities. We don't have a staff of experts. They do."

During the 1960s and 1970s, Bliss contracted with companies to dispose of pharmaceutical and other wastes. He used his property and other parcels in eastern Missouri as a dumping ground, burying barrels and pouring chemicals into open pits and storage tanks.

Decades ago, residents complained that they had to pick up dead birds off the ground just to mow the lawn. The air, they said, smelled like a high school chemistry class.

Federal authorities began investigating the site in 1977 but didn't begin a cleanup until the mid-1990s.

"They basically just let it sit there and worked really slowly," said Martino-Taylor, who has researched dioxin sites around the state. Dioxin is a byproduct often found in chemical manufacturing and waste incineration, which can be harmful to people at high levels.

The EPA continues to look for contaminants on the site, maintaining three monitoring wells. One monitor still registers hits of arsenic and benzene, said Councilman Tony Salvatore. That's enough to leave many to wonder what other hazards may still be underground.

"We don't know what the hell he dumped here," Salvatore said.

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