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Months after those and other details were highlighted in a damning , government workers at St. Louis’ approximately 2,000-employee Goodfellow Federal Complex are still waiting for questions to be answered and for facility operators to meet ensuing requests — inaction they say has helped spark recent and continued protest rallies.

Union leaders said workers at the complex — including personnel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Veterans Affairs and Social Security Administration — are seeking to be moved to a different facility, and until then, be given maximized opportunities to work remotely, if possible. They also want the owners of the 23-building campus to “address any medical needs that have arisen from this hazard,” said Jennifer Major, a health and safety chairperson for the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The 62.5-acre site at 4300 Goodfellow Boulevard about 8 miles north of downtown was originally built as a munitions plant for the U.S. Army during World War II. In 1966, ownership shifted to the U.S. General Services Administration, an agency that manages government buildings and real estate, and whose Public Building Service, or PBS, describes itself as

In 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Public Building Service for seven violations at the site after receiving an employee complaint. Documents say those included infractions where “staff and visitors were uninformed about their exposure to toxic substances; lead dust was found in work areas; and (the) employer did not provide information to employees on the presence of hazardous chemicals and lead-containing dust.”

Those issues were satisfactorily addressed, according to OSHA, which closed its file on the Goodfellow complex last August. But the notice of unsafe working conditions set off a chain of concern and scrutiny — first by triggering an audit of environmental issues from the Office of Inspector General. The audit’s findings, released in March, have since prompted rallies led by employees who are still worried about the site.

Keena Smith, who is often at the complex as president of the local union chapter for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and others said lingering concerns are stoked by actions like the transfer of some workers, such as pregnant women, out of certain areas, and the presence of contractors wearing protective gear moving equipment from other work zones.

“For me, that’s a red flag that something is still going on,” said Smith. “If the facility is safe, why are you moving these people?”

It’s easy to understand the alarm felt by her and others, based on the report and the prolonged pattern of mismanagement that it describes.

The audit says that Public Building Service has been aware of significant contamination at the complex “for decades,” and that over a 15-year period spanning 2002 through 2016, at least 33 studies examined environmental conditions at the facility.

“Although these studies identified the presence of numerous environmental hazards at the complex, including lead, asbestos, and other known cancer-causing agents; PBS failed to comprehensively address the deficiencies and inform the complex’s occupants of the existing conditions,” it states.

That applied to places including the cafeteria and child care center.

Studies found elevated levels of lead “in, around, and under” the cafeteria — which was formerly a lead shop — as well as PCBs in the same area, according to the audit. Despite at least four studies spread across more than a decade that identified the dangers there, the report says “PBS took no action to inform tenants or implement safety controls” at the time.

Similar findings extend to the former child care center at the complex, which closed in 2009. Tests conducted there in 2003, 2006 and 2008, all identified lead paint and excessive lead levels. Young children are most vulnerable to harm from lead, and particularly its negative effects on brain and nervous system development. But Public Building Service officials were unable to show that a planned project to remove lead paint from the center was ever completed, and “were also unaware of any attempts to notify parents of the children using the childcare center of the lead-related risks,” the audit said.

A history of inaction isn’t the site’s only environmental problem. The report also revealed a track record of sloppy record-keeping, describing “continued deficiencies” with how Public Building Service “documented and maintained information” about the hazards at the site. For example, “PBS could not produce a complete listing of the studies performed at the Goodfellow complex and did not have a central repository for maintaining these studies,” the audit says. In fact, six studies provided to auditors came from the contractors that performed them instead of from Public Building Service.

Employees say they also were ignored.

“Workers complained about several different issues, they just weren’t heard,” said Joan Conway, another representative of the local AFGE union chapter, describing employees over the years having difficulty breathing or feeling lethargic. “We were just constantly told that nothing was wrong.”

For others, the release of the audit was the first indication that there were problems — despite years of troubling reports generated internally by the site’s operators.

“As far as USDA is concerned, we kind of didn’t know until that report came out that there were problems,” said Wil Grant, the local union president for USDA employees. He said the union is now “trying to figure out who was in what area,” to potentially link health issues to hazard exposure.

Major and Smith said that they, too, are seeking information about which employees may have been at risk from certain contaminants, but that no agency has provided them so far.

With about 1,500 workers on site, the USDA is by far the largest employer at the complex. Local agency representatives declined to comment, and directed questions to the General Services Administration.

GSA, however, said it is “not involved with tenant agencies’ employer-employee matters,” and therefore couldn’t respond to the worker requests voiced at rallies. It said that a move to a different facility may happen, based on years of analysis that found it would be cheaper to move tenants elsewhere, instead of paying to keep the complex functional. But it’s still unclear when that transition could happen, as GSA weighs time frames and drafts a recommendation.

The environmental audit might not factor into the calculus.

That’s because the agency said the audit “did not identify any additional contaminants that GSA is not already managing,” according to an email from Pamela Pennington, an agency spokesperson.

She said GSA has “incorporated and addressed most of the OIG findings, such as implementing site-specific safety plans and making environmental reports, studies and stakeholder memos available.” Possible contamination, Pennington added, is now limited to “controlled areas” not accessed by tenants, such as basements, tunnels, and crawl spaces.

Workers remain unsatisfied. The next rally planned by employees at the site is scheduled for July 27 at noon.

“We will continue to do them and hold them until everybody is moved off the campus,” said Smith. “We’re still waiting to see what these agencies are going to do.”