In a historic victory for grassroots activism, two women whose families suffered severe harm from exposure to America’s nuclear weapons program stood behind a podium Tuesday morning and faced a row of microphones and a bank of TV cameras and reporters.
The event, held at St. Cin Park in Hazelwood, evoked an almost surreal quality for Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, the co-founders of Just Moms STL, which advocated relentlessly for survivors of radiation exposure in St. Louis County and St. Charles County.
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Because of their efforts, victims of radiation exposure in the St. Louis region will receive up to $3.5 billion, by far the largest slice of the $7.7 billion worth of cash and other benefits contained in the expanded Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 as part of the megabill that Congress passed the day before.
When she stepped behind the podium, Chapman paused for a moment to consider the many people who had helped her on her 13-year journey fighting for survivors of radiation exposure near Coldwater Creek and West Lake Landfill, in North St. Louis County, and Weldon Spring, in St. Charles County.
“These people have fought for so long, and so hard,” Chapman said. “There are so many people who should be behind us who passed on.”
Chapman called the struggle to get compensation for Missouri radiation survivors “the hardest thing I ever did … And you know what? Our government made it harder. Everything they did to hide the truth from us.”
For Chapman, the new law is tantamount to “the government saying, ‘We did this, we’re sorry. And this is the apology.’ And is it enough? No. Nothing ever brings back a loved one. No amount of money is enough. But you know what? This will save lives.”
The expanded RECA will provide cash restitution and health screenings for thousands of people exposed to dangerous levels of radiation since the late 1940s through weapons testing, uranium mining, and unsafe storage in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Alaska, and Arizona.
People applying for benefits under the new RECA have until the end of 2028 to apply. In Missouri, eligibility extends to people who can prove they lived since 1949 in one of 21 ZIP codes for at least two years, and that they suffer from a specific list of cancers, including cancers of the colon, heart, appendix, lung, breast, and brain, as well as leukemia.
The U.S. Department of Justice will oversee the application process. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, a key supporter of the measure, said his office will work to expedite matters.
“My office will set up a hotline, we’re going to set up a dedicated web page, we’ll have dedicated staff to help people apply,” Hawley said.
Like others who spoke Tuesday, Nickel praised Hawley’s commitment to obtaining justice for the radiation survivors. In Nickel’s case, her story began many years ago, when as a little girl she played in St. Cin Park, which abuts Coldwater Creek, a 14-mile waterway that flows northeast from St. Louis Lambert International Airport to the Mississippi River.
Unbeknownst to Nickel and her neighbors, the creek had been contaminated by thousands of improperly stored barrels full of radioactive waste dumped near the airport in the late 1940s. The waste was a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process that occurred at a Mallinckrodt Chemical Company plant in downtown St. Louis during the 1940s as part of the secretive Manhattan Project.
Glancing to her left and right, Nickel said the park “holds memories of my childhood. But it also was the beginning of a long, painful journey of illnesses and loss, not just mine, but my family, my neighbors and friends and so many others.”
Hawley, who opened the press conference, traced the history of the federal government’s nuclear weapons program and the deadly legacy of secrecy, illness and death left in its wake across Missouri and many other points nationwide.
The government dumped radioactive waste in communities without telling residents about it. “And worse,” Hawley said, “they were frequently lied to about the scope of the radiation.”
Originally passed in 1990, RECA has paid out more than $2.6 billion in claims. And while the new version of the bill represents a historic expansion, more work needs to be done, Hawley said: “The fight continues. There are other communities that should be covered.”
Next up was Buu Nygren, the president of the Navajo Nation, who noted that more than 4,000 Navajo worked in uranium mines across its territory, where more than 500 abandoned mines still await clean-up.
Until recently, many Navajo hurt by radiation exposure have felt forgotten by their government, Nygren said.
“Through this effort, they feel like they’re not forgotten anymore,” he said.
In the months leading up to Trump’s signing of the megabill, Hawley had set himself up as a protector of Medicaid, the massive health insurance program for low-income Americans. Nonetheless, Hawley voted for a measure that will cut nearly $1 trillion from the program and kick an estimated 17 million people off it.
“Here’s the deal,” the senator said in reply to a reporter’s question. “My philosophy from the beginning was, ‘I want RECA to be put on anything that’s moving.”
Earlier in the year, Hawley met with Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, the Senate majority leader, to discuss the megabill’s fate.
“And I thought, ‘By golly, that thing’s going to move,’” Hawley said. “’And it’s going to pass both houses.’ So I was delighted to have [RECA] on it.”
Hawley hammered on the idea that the bill won’t cut Medicaid funding for Missouri residents, but will actually increase it by $1 billion between now and 2030. “So there’s a lot of work to do on this,” Hawley said.
He insisted that he still thinks it’s a mistake to cut Medicaid funding. “I’ve always said that,” he said. “I continue to believe that. We have prevented that from happening in Missouri for the rest of the decade.”
