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Amid calls by lawmakers and activists to boost state surveillance of radioactive sites left over from the St. Louis region’s role in creating the nuclear bomb, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources inserted a request for $221,000 to launch the program into their budget proposal for next year.

“Citizens and lawmakers are concerned with impacts of past and current federal government activities related to radioactive waste handling and remediation,� the request notes. “Currently, the department has no sustainable funds to oversee the federal government’s remediation activities or to conduct radioactive investigations.�

Securing the money remains a challenge. Although Parson signed legislation creating the fund more than five years ago, it has never received money through the budgeting process.

The money must first be endorsed by Parson and then by the Legislature. If approved, it would be placed in the state budget for the fiscal year beginning next July 1.

DNR earlier told the Post-Dispatch the agency did not request funding in previous years because the state’s hazardous waste fund “had been experiencing severe fund solvency issues.�

But, pressure on state and federal officials has been ramping up in recent years as more people living near the radioactive waste dump sites are expressing concern about the health effects and the lack of action.

Missouri politicians, including U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush of St. Louis, Attorney General Andrew Bailey and a host of state lawmakers from the areas affected by the cancer-causing material, have been holding meetings and press conferences to put the problem in the spotlight.

In July, the U.S. Senate approved a Hawley amendment that would expand an existing federal nuclear radiation exposure survivor program to include residents of St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Charles County.

At issue is radioactive waste from the processing of uranium ore by Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis in helping develop the atomic bomb, beginning in the 1940s.

The waste contaminated areas in north St. Louis County along the Coldwater Creek watershed, and some waste was buried at West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton.

While much of the focus in recent years had been on those areas, state Rep. Tricia Byrnes, R-Wentzville, and others have been pushing to compensate people in the Weldon Spring area who developed cancers associated with Mallinckrodt’s uranium processing there from 1957 to 1966.

Surface remediation there concluded with completion of a 41-acre, on-site disposal cell in 2001, visible from Highway 94 just west of Francis Howell High School.

The radioactive waste investigation fund was created in 2018 as part of legislation sponsored by former Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City.

In its request, DNR said securing the money will ensure the state can respond to requests by local governments to perform or oversee radioactive waste investigations.

“These investigations would alleviate public concerns and provide protection of human health and the environment,� the request notes. “Due to the increased interest in the radiological remediation projects currently underway and numerous issues that have drawn the public interest, it is anticipated that the department will receive numerous requests for investigations.�