ST. LOUIS 鈥 狐狸视频-area activists have been fighting for years to get government compensation for people with cancer and other serious illnesses potentially connected to Manhattan Project nuclear contamination. This week marked a major victory, with support coming from the president.
Uranium was processed in 狐狸视频 starting at the onset of World War II as America raced to develop nuclear bombs.
Reports last fall that Jana Elementary, near Coldwater Creek in Florissant, may have been contaminated 鈥 a finding from a testing lab hired by plaintiffs鈥 lawyers in a pending case against several companies 鈥 drew renewed interest in 狐狸视频鈥 nuclear legacy. In response to alarmed constituents, both U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-狐狸视频, and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called for additional testing, remediation and compensation. Jana was closed, forcing kids to study elsewhere, despite repeated assurances by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the school was safe.
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Then, in July, reporting by The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press on government documents obtained by outside researchers gave new momentum to bipartisan efforts to compensate those in 狐狸视频 and elsewhere whose illnesses may be tied to nuclear fallout and contamination.
On Wednesday, that support extended to President Joe Biden.
鈥淚鈥檓 prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,鈥 Biden said during a visit to New Mexico.
Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, who lead the activist group Just Moms STL, said they鈥檙e optimistic but not letting up.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a great day,鈥 Chapman said. 鈥淲e feel incredible. But we don鈥檛 take the time to celebrate it. For us, it鈥檚 like we have a strong wind at our back. Now who do we push? We don鈥檛 let up for a moment.鈥
Hawley introduced legislation last month to expand an existing compensation program for exposure victims. The Senate endorsed the amendment, but the proposed changes to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are not yet included in a House-approved defense bill amid negotiations toward final legislation.
狐狸视频 is far from alone in suffering the effects of the geographically scattered national nuclear program. Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.
Months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in 狐狸视频 began processing uranium into a concentrated form that could be further refined elsewhere into the material that made it into weapons.
By the late-1940s, the government was trucking nuclear waste from the Mallinckrodt plant to a site near Lambert Airport. It was there that the waste was dumped into Coldwater Creek, contaminating a 19-mile waterway that stretches across north 狐狸视频 County.
In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission demolished and buried buildings near the airport and moved the waste to another site, contaminating it, too. Documents cited by AP and the other news organizations showed that storage was haphazard and waste was spilled on roads but that mistakes were often ignored.
Uranium waste also was illegally dumped in West Lake Landfill, near the airport, in 1973. It鈥檚 still there.
Cleanup in 狐狸视频 County has topped $1 billion, and it鈥檚 far from over.
Meanwhile, uranium was processed in neighboring St. Charles County starting in the 1950s, creating more contamination. The government built a 75-foot mound, covered in rock, to serve as a permanent disposal cell, and the area is considered remediated.
Some experts are skeptical about the connection between diseases and the contamination. Tim Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, told the AP in July that the biggest risk factor for cancer is age and that local radiation鈥檚 contribution would be so low as to be hard to detect.
Still, in 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report that found people who regularly played in Coldwater Creek as children from the 1960s to the 1990s may have a slight increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. The agency determined that those exposed daily to the creek starting in the 2000s, when cleanup began, could have a small increased risk of lung cancer.
Many of those with direct connections to illnesses are far more convinced. Kyle Hedgpeth鈥檚 young daughter and niece both were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, within a month of each other. Both have since recovered.
Hedgpeth鈥檚 wife and her brother grew up near a creek that flows from the St. Charles County site. He believes they picked up something from exposure to the creek and passed it down to their girls.
鈥淚t seems all too coincidental,鈥 Hedgpeth said. 鈥淚 just think there鈥檚 too many red flags literally putting it in their backyard to ignore it.鈥
The Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.