ST. LOUIS COUNTY — U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-St. Louis, wants federal officials to review ongoing and prior efforts to clean up World War II-era toxic waste that was stored near St. Louis Lambert International Airport and got into Coldwater Creek.
Bush also wants warning signs put up along the creek, which extends 19 miles through north St. Louis County to the Missouri River, for people unware of lingering contamination from helping develop the nation’s first nuclear weapons.
These requests were made in a bill Bush introduced Thursday that calls on the comptroller general of the United States, secretary of the Army, secretary of energy, administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the “heads of other appropriate†federal agencies to do the review.
Bush’s bill says community representatives, as well as state and local agencies, are to be consulted before submitting a report to Congress about the “status of efforts to reduce or eliminate the potential human health impacts from potential exposure to such contamination, including any recommendations for further action.â€
People are also reading…
“No family should have to deal with the uncertainty of their health and safety because of unidentified radioactive waste in Coldwater Creek,†Bush said in prepared remarks. “I am hopeful this legislation will move swiftly through the House and save lives in St. Louis.â€
People have feared for years that they or their families were physically harmed by exposure to contamination. There have been numerous lawsuits, but cases are complex because of the nature of rare cancers and number of companies that handled the material over a long period of time at different locations.
The saga starts north of downtown St. Louis, where Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. processed massive amounts of uranium ore for the development of atomic weapons from 1942 to 1957. Tons of byproduct with residual radioactive material were shipped to a location on the northern border of the airport, next to Coldwater Creek, to be stored. For years, the toxic waste sat there, mainly in barrels, in the 100 block of James S. McDonnell Boulevard. By the mid-1960s, the material was purchased, trucked to the nearby 9200 block of Latty Avenue, also along the creek. The material was dried there before it was shipped to Canon City, Colorado. Some of it was also buried at West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton.
The main storage sites along Coldwater Creek, and surrounding areas, ended up being heavily contaminated. Those sources of contamination have mainly been remediated. Now, the ongoing focus has been testing so the creek can finally be cleaned up. The Corps has speeded up testing along much of the length of the creek but pushed the completion date to 2038. There has been recent concern that contamination would be dislodged when a McDonnell Boulevard bridge over the creek is replaced near the airport.
A Post-Dispatch in-depth report about the creek in late 2021 signaled that many North County residents aren’t aware of the toxic legacy. Or if they are, they think the contamination was limited to the airport area. The story showed several recommendations from a 2019 ATSDR report weren’t followed, including the lack of signage. The Corps said then that its role was not to put up signs where there is residual radioactive material that lasts billions of years, especially on private property. Regardless, the agency said the contamination levels it was finding miles downstream were low and below ground surface.
Bush’s bill asks the offices of the comptroller general and secretary of the Army to install signage “to inform residents and visitors of potential exposure risks in areas around Coldwater Creek where remediation efforts have not been undertaken or completed.â€
