WELDON SPRING — Citing decades-old government studies and memos, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley said Thursday he is drafting legislation to create a fund to pay for the medical care of the victims of radioactive contamination in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ metro region.
“For 75 years now, the federal government has poisoned the water, the soil and the air of this community and has lied about it over and over. They’ve lied to every member of this community,†said Hawley, who estimated that some 80,000 Missourians have been sickened by the contamination that dates back to the 1940s, when ºüÀêÊÓƵ was a critical production center for the war effort.
Hawley made the announcement at a press conference, attended by other elected officials and activists, at the , a U.S. Department of Energy-managed site along Highway 94 that features a 41-acre rock-covered disposal cell packed with contaminated waste from munitions production and uranium refining.
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Hawley also called for the U.S. Senate’s Energy Committee to hold hearings on the contamination and for President Joe Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and other federal officials to tour contaminated sites in ºüÀêÊÓƵ and St. Charles counties.
Hawley, a Republican, said he is working with U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat, who plans to introduce similar legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives in the near future. Both are running for reelection in 2024.
Bush, who could not attend the press conference due to obligations in Washington, issued a statement that said the “federal government must not continue to allow our communities to be further collateral damage.â€
Bush said the federal government must not only issue an apology to Missourians, but must also financially commit to cleaning up the various communities affected by the nuclear waste.
Several state lawmakers organized the press conference in response to new news reports showing the federal government and companies involved in nuclear bomb production and atomic waste storage sites knew of risks to workers and the public early on.
Rep. Raychel Proudie, D-Ferguson, said she believed the hearings proposed by Hawley would be a significant step forward for people seeking accountability.
“It doesn’t matter if you live in northeast Missouri or southwest Missouri, what has happened here should matter to you. It should matter to you because for 75 years, the federal government has lied to the people of this region and this entire state,†Proudie said in an interview after the press conference.
She and Rep. Richard West, R-Wentzville, said there is the potential that the contamination associated with these munitions plants and testing sites could replace the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County community of Times Beach as the worst contamination site in recent Missouri history. Times Beach was evacuated in 1983 and eventually razed because of dioxin contamination.
“Times Beach was a relatively small area, and just here in St. Charles County we are talking about 1,700 acres that the Department of Energy owned at one time. The scale of this is obviously bigger, because there are multiple communities and multiple issues impacted,†said West, who along with Rep. Tricia Byrnes, R-Wentzville, and St. Charles County Councilman Joe Brazil are hosting a town hall on Aug. 2 in New Melle focused on concerns over contaminated water, health effects of these sites and future growth in St. Charles County.
“The public for so long has been gaslighted by the federal government, that there is a lot of disbelief of the documents that we have. The disbelief is not that the documents we have are false, but the disbelief that the public never knew some of this information,†said West, who said he was “a little bit optimistic†that federal officials will accept Hawley’s invitation to tour the region.
Hawley said the federal government should order the Army Corps of Engineers to complete soil testing at every school campus in the region following the ongoing fallout following reports of uranium contamination being found at the now shuttered Jana Elementary School in Florissant.
“We need to test every property, every school, every school building all in the area, all of it,†said Hawley, who said the levels of contamination cited by a third-party report are not levels of contamination that would “not be an act of nature.â€
“It was the federal government’s negligence that led to this, and they need to clean it up — all of it,†Hawley said.
Proudie predicted that “all kinds of hell are going to break loose,†if further testing at the region’s schools find that “for generations we have been sending our children to sites that have been contaminated and that the federal government knew about it.â€