Illustration by Vidhya Nagarajan
Your federal government has become positively jovial in addressing radioactive waste contamination in North County’s Coldwater Creek.
Upon revealing in June that radioactive waste had been newly discovered along the creek above two municipal parks and some property owned by the Archdiocese of St. Louis, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had this to say:
“Unless you dug it up and ate it, it’s not going to be a big threat.”
How reassuring. “Go out and play, kids: You are quite unlikely to contract a potentially fatal illness, according to current environmental standards. But remember, don’t eat the dirt.”
Another Corps official did concede the levels of lethal Thorium 230 found at the new sites exceeded the cleanup goal “by a factor of two to four.” But he, too, called that “low-level” radiation and said it posed no immediate health threat because the waste was a foot or more below the surface.
The Corps also has no plans to keep people out of the parks before remediation takes place later in the year. Why, of course it doesn’t.
The waste is the byproduct of the top-secret Manhattan Project, wherein the military contracted with companies to enrich uranium for the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942. One of those companies was Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis.
Long story short, much of the waste—known as “poisons” back then—made its way to two gigantic piles at the airport. From there, it seeped and blew its way into Coldwater Creek, a beautiful tributary that winds through about 15 miles of the county, traveling through communities such as Florissant, Hazelwood, Black Jack, Spanish Lake, St. Ann, Berkeley, and Ferguson.
Dream homes sprang up near that creek, which often flooded gardens and basements. Kids played in that creek. Families loved that creek.
Now, it turns out that the creek was transformed into a contaminated conduit for poisons whose lethality was still unknown to medical science. It would afflict yesterday’s innocent children, among others, with rare and deadly cancers and macabre genetic mutations that would plague them for the rest of their lives.
At least that’s what many residents and former residents believe.
Several years ago, after discovering that an inordinate number of their classmates from McCluer North High School seemed to be getting deathly ill or dying, some concerned citizens created a Facebook page called “Coldwater Creek: Just the Facts, Please” as a place to communicate and determine the scope of the problem. They got more than they bargained for.
Today, the Facebook page has nearly 10,500 members. There have been more than 2,000 reports of cancer or other illnesses in a relatively tiny geographical area, according to the group. Some are rare diseases, such as the 37 instances of appendix cancer (more than quadruple the expected rate for an area this size); 113 cases of brain cancer; and 747 individuals with autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, as well as tumors and thyroid problems. That’s not to mention lots of reports of infertility and birth defects.
As a result of the stories that have poured into the page and a related website, the group has compiled cancer cluster maps that indicate a pretty stunning number of cases—or, as your federal government and Mallinckrodt would prefer to describe them, “alleged cases.”
You see, both the government and the company have staked out positions of defense and denial for the past seven decades. Congress didn’t get around to acknowledging the problem until 1990. Funding for remediation in St. Louis didn’t even start until 1997, more than half a century after the Manhattan Project unleashed its horror.
Most significantly, nothing—and I mean nothing—has been done by your federal government to study the health consequences of this disaster to the poisoned children of Coldwater Creek. And that’s a fact.
Even as the government reluctantly cleans up the poisons (a painfully slow and unfinished process), it continues to minimize the problem. Read literature from the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), and you’ll find nothing more than soothing rhetoric and bureaucratic tripe about cleanup efforts. It even offers a comparison with the Chernobyl disaster, purporting to illuminate how it was far more serious than Coldwater Creek.
But don’t try telling that to Shari Riley or Debra Finkenkeller Leonard or Beth Schweitzer or Pam Drenner. In the past two years, all of them shared their fears—and their health struggles—on the Facebook page.
Each of them told the kind of horror story that government and company officials have steadfastly refused to associate with the pollution of Coldwater Creek. In fairness, it should be noted that none produced scientific studies, jargon, or analysis—just her own, real-life testimony.
Don’t try telling any of those women the poisons of Coldwater Creek aren’t real. Don’t try telling any of them it’s all good if you just don’t dig up the waste and eat it. Don’t try telling them anything. You see, they’re all dead.
Yes, they all were exposed to that creek. And they all got sick from horrible (and in some cases rare) cancers. They were all scared and shared their fears, with nothing to gain, on a Facebook page.
Then they died.
Their government—your government—didn’t listen to them then. And it doesn’t care about them now. All of the rational explanations, all of the soothing assurances about low risks, all of the technical jargon in the world won’t change that.
The government doesn’t care. And much to the discredit of St. Louis’ and Missouri’s Congressional delegation, it’s not even being pushed to care.
If you like your politics bipartisan, this is a shining moment. Both Democrats such as Rep. Lacy Clay and Sen. Claire McCaskill and Republicans such as Rep. Ann Wagner and Sen. Roy Blunt have had precisely the same reaction to this situation. All of them graciously made high-level aides available to some of the people who came to them to tell their stories of Coldwater Creek. All of those aides listened intently, asked good questions, showed great empathy, and expressed their sadness. Some, I’m told, were teary-eyed.
And then their bosses did nothing.
Unbelievable. If I’m wrong, I’d be happy to update this column online, with a link to their work, to prove any of these legislators have taken any action whatsoever to bring justice to the poisoned children of Coldwater Creek. Prove me wrong. Please.
Advocates for Coldwater Creek residents won’t criticize these politicians; they’re still hopeful that something will be done. Even something as simple as requesting that St. Louis’ victims of the Manhattan Project be considered for federal assistance through the “downwinders” program, which helps some in a handful of western states.
And even if the government didn’t get money to individuals who are suffering, prodding from our politicians could at least provide needed resources for public education. How many people exposed to the poisons of Coldwater Creek might be saved if they learned about early cancer screening?
Close to home, there is a glimmer of hope. The new St. Louis County health director, Dr. Faisal Khan, has indicated that the county will launch a health study to locate past Coldwater Creek area residents and evaluate their health histories.
Hallelujah. It’s literally the first time that’s been done.
At a recent FUSRAP event, Khan told me that his boss, County Executive Steve Stenger, is constantly asking about progress on the subject. Good for him. Why is it so hard for any other public officials—the governor of Missouri included—to treat the tragedy of Coldwater Creek as a public issue of as much importance as, say, a stadium?
All of the money in the world isn’t going to bring back Riley, Finkenkeller Leonard, Schweitzer, or Drenner. But in their memory and in their honor, the government could actually start caring.
Even if it means admitting that the tragedy of Coldwater Creek needs to be addressed as a crisis. Now.
