The poisoned children of Coldwater Creek finally get a break

A minor miracle occurred in St. Louis on June 18: A mountain wasn’t moved, but it was nudged. The worst health-related scandal in the history of our region wasn’t resolved, but for the first time a human horror show spanning three quarters of a century was given a semblance of official recognition.

The federal government has publicly conceded that the poisoned children of Coldwater Creek have a higher risk of cancer than the rest of us. In a report released June 18, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry stated that exposure to radiological contaminants polluting the creek “could increase the risk of developing bone or lung cancer, leukemia or (to a lesser extent) skin or breast cancer.”

And lest one think this is behind us, ATSDR also concluded that “more recent exposures (2000s and on) increased the risk of developing bone or lung cancer from daily residential exposure.”

For those who have followed the tragic tale of Coldwater Creek—reported here and elsewhere since 1989—it was initially tempting to view the news as the government’s belatedly “discovering” the obvious, of science finally catching up with common sense. But this actually is “a big deal,” in the words of Jenell Rodden Wright, one of the leaders of a group of heroic citizens who have battled tirelessly to expose North County residents’ plight.

“We’re really pleased that the federal government has performed the public-health assessment and worked earnestly to gather the facts and try to assist our community,” Wright says. “They listened, they researched, and didn’t sweep this thing under the rug.”

To the uninformed, that might not seem a stunning accomplishment. But this development—a necessary step if we’re ever going to help the afflicted and fully remove the toxins from the region—has been preceded by decades of government malfeasance.

For those who haven’t followed the tale, the original sin is pretty much as I described it in this space five years ago. I wrote about what happened “to the residents who lived from the 1960s on in Coldwater Creek, a picturesque tributary through about 15 miles of the county, spanning communities such as Florissant, Hazelwood, Black Jack, Spanish Lake, St. Ann, Berkeley, and Ferguson. It runs past schools, golf courses, and soccer fields.

“The creek was once a thing of beauty, to be sure. But there was one problem that the residents knew nothing about: Some of the deadliest toxins known to man had been dumped into Coldwater Creek.

“Over seven decades, home sweet home has doubled as a hell zone of water, soil, and air contaminated with such treacherous substances as uranium-238 (with a half-life of 4.5 billion years) and thorium-232 (with a half-life of 14 billion years). The residents have paid a ghastly price, and the contamination may continue to plague future generations.

“It all started with the famous Manhattan Project, as St. Louis’ Mallinckrodt Chemical Works secretly signed on to enrich uranium for the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942. For 15 years, the company would continue its uranium-refining activities at its downtown site, and when it ran out of room to store its tons and tons of hazardous waste—known in the day as ‘poisons’—it was off to a couple of sites near the airport.

“Reportedly, not even the people assigned to transportation duties had any idea of what they had on their hands. It was inevitable, between the hauling and the storage, that Coldwater Creek and neighboring properties would become contaminated beyond anyone’s comprehension. Nothing could have been more irresponsible.

“‘We have the oldest radioactive waste of the atomic age,’ says Kay Drey, the grande dame of local environmentalism. ‘And there is no place on the planet to put this where it won’t impact our air, our water, and our lives. There is no solution.’”

Over the years, Drey’s voice was joined by many others, and they have been crying out in vain for decades for government to remove the poisons and to assess, admit, and respond to the horrors it unleashed on our citizens so many years ago. Their worst fears have been realized and documented in chilling detail—not by the government but instead by that tireless band of affected citizens led by Wright, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, and others.

After discovering how many classmates and neighbors were dying young or becoming gravely ill with rare cancers, the activists formed a Facebook group called Coldwater Creek—Just the Facts Please. In 2013, I noted that “the page has grown to 7,200 members, whose heart-wrenching stories seem endless.”

Five years later, it turns out, the stories weren’t endless. The page is still filled with firsthand accounts of unspeakable tragedies, all of which just happened to befall people who had the misfortune to play in or live by the creek as children. Today, the Facebook group has 21,422 members.

To the credit of ATSDR (an agency, heretofore unknown to most of us, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the breakthrough report was the result of extraordinary responsiveness to local citizens. Normally, I’m told, ATSDR enters a situation like this at the request of state agencies.

But in case you hadn’t noticed, North County is in Missouri, proud home to one of the least funded, least responsive, and, frankly, least caring governments in the nation. In most states, the lack of interest or response on the part of the Missouri

Department of Health and Senior Services to this particular tragedy would be a major scandal. Here, it’s, like, Tuesday.

That, by the way, is my opinion, not Wright’s. But just when I thought there was no such thing as a compassionate bureaucrat, Wright told me that at least one such person actually exists at ATSDR. Her name is Erin Evans, and she’s based in Kansas, but Wright says she’s a hero to St. Louis:

“Erin Evans came to our community at least a dozen times. She listened to our citizens earnestly. She was open to gathering the facts. It was refreshing to have someone truly listen and truly care.”

Didn’t see that coming. And given that state and federal agencies (including the EPA) have been responding to the Coldwater Creek at the pace of a slightly faster-than-average glacier, it deserves a shout-out. So do the “next steps” conclusions of the ATSDR report, which include:

• “That potentially exposed residents or former residents share their potential exposure related to Coldwater Creek with their physicians as part of their medical history and consult their physicians promptly if new or unusual symptoms develop. Upon request, ATSDR can facilitate a consultation between residents’ personal physicians and medical specialists in environmental health.”
• “That the state consider updating analyses on cancer incidence, cancer mortality, and birth defects, as feasible.” (Good luck with that—my comment, not theirs.)
• ATSDR did conclude that additional general disease screening was not needed for residents, but it offered to “provide technical support, upon request, to update cancer incidence or mortality studies in the area and identify public health actions needed.” And it stated: “ATSDR supports ongoing efforts to identify and properly remediate radiological waste around Coldwater Creek.”

That last point is worth special attention. This is not merely an unspeakably awful tragedy that has plagued our citizens for seven decades. It’s also unfinished business, an unresolved trauma of radiological toxins that live on today.

To his credit, St. Louis County public health director Faisal Khan has continued efforts to respond to the crisis with public health education efforts, and Wright says major progress has been made in informing local medical experts and healthcare providers of the risks associated with Coldwater Creek.

So there are glimmers of hope—and there’s this request from Wright: “Please, please, please encourage people to respond to the ATSDR by their due date of 8/31/18.” You can do that by emailing [email protected].

It would be nice if someone from Missouri’s congressional delegation or state government were among the hundreds likely to do so.

SLM publisher Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs at 7 p.m. Thursdays.