Bill expanding radioactive waste investigations unanimously sent to Missouri governor
A sign warns of radioactive material at the West Lake Landfill. Thousands of tons of nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project were dumped there in the 1970s (Theo Welling/Riverfront Times).
A bill expanding the state's ability to find radioactive contamination in the St. Louis region that dates to World War II development of the atomic bomb is on its way to the governor after unanimously clearing the Missouri House Monday.
The measure, which passed unanimously out of the Senate last week, would authorize the Department of Natural Resources to seek a search warrant to conduct investigations on otherwise off-limits government land. The bill also removes a $150,000 annual cap on how much the state can spend on an investigation and changes the rules governing the fund so that unspent money is not moved to another fund.
Money transferred to the fund could not be used for clean-up of any contamination found in the investigation. The waste was spread by federal contractors and should be cleaned up by federal authorities, state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Defiance Republican, said during last week's debate.
'Let's give them the data. Let's see where that goes,' Schroer said. 'And if they're not willing to clean the mess up, I think we're going to have a lot of lawsuits on our hands. But I think we're gonna be back in this building, talking about it and if they're not going to do it, we need to step up and protect our people.'
Records reveal 75 years of government downplaying, ignoring risks of St. Louis radioactive waste
St. Louis has struggled for decades with remnant radioactive waste from the World War II-era effort to build the world's first atomic bomb.
While the presence of radioactive contamination in suburban St. Louis was known for years, an investigation by The Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press revealed in 2023 that the federal government and companies handling the waste were aware of the threat to the public long before informing residents.
Uranium was refined in downtown St. Louis for use in the development of the bomb. After the war, it was trucked to St. Louis County, often falling off of trucks along the way. It was dumped at the airport, susceptible to the wind and rain, and contaminated the adjacent Coldwater Creek.
As suburban neighborhoods sprung up along Coldwater Creek, generations of children and families were exposed to the radioactive waste, elevating residents' risk of certain cancers.
The waste was sold and moved to a site in Hazelwood, also along Coldwater Creek, so that a company could extract valuable metals. Eventually, the remnant radioactive material was dumped in the West Lake Landfill where it remains today.
'This has been a long time coming,' state Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Ferguson Democrat, said of the radioactive waste investigative fund legislation passed Monday.
Coldwater Creek is being cleaned up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers while the Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing the cleanup of the West Lake Landfill.
The EPA announced earlier this year that it expanded the area of the West Lake Landfill that requires remediation by 40 acres after discovering contamination was more widespread than the agency previously thought. The cost of the project is now nearly $400 million, up from $229 million.
State Rep. Doug Clemens, a Democrat from St. Ann, said Monday that his community is ravaged by rare cancers that he attributes to the radioactive contamination left behind by development of the atomic bomb.
'We played our part in World War II,' he said. 'This weapons project left waste behind. That waste is incredibly harmful.'
The Independent's Rudi Keller contributed to this story.
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