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Officials knew Manhattan Project chemicals disposed improperly at Missouri sites, documents reveal

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Several moms in suburban St. Louis have been working to get toxic sites in 
the area cleaned up, a major undertaking to fix widespread contamination 
that some government officials apparently covered up for decades.

"This was the best kept secret of St. Louis. The Manhattan Project wasn't 
well known here, and it's still a pretty good secret here," Just Moms STL 
co-founder Karen Nickel said. 

Nickel formed her group alongside her neighbor, Dawn Chapman, in 2013. 

"Over the years, we had heard bits and pieces of the story and what we 
thought was the story," Nickel said. 

MORE PEOPLE EXPOSED TO MANHATTAN PROJECT CHEMICALS DESERVE COMPENSATION, 
ADVOCATES SAY

The two moms spent several years going through thousands of documents that 
revealed those in charge of disposing of toxic waste in Missouri likely 
knew that crew had mishandled those chemicals. 

"Right away, we were going, ‘Oh my God. This is so different than what we 
thought,"’ Chapman said. 

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said, over time, more details about the Manhattan 
Project in St. Louis came to light. 

"As early as the 1960s, you had the public beginning to get some sense of 
it. But really, it wasn't until the ‘80s and the ’90s that the full scope 
of this began to come into view," Hawley said. 

"As recently as last year, we got a new cache of documents that showed the 
full extent of the government's knowledge and what the government knew 
years ago — 30, 40, 50 years ago — that they had poisoned the creek, that 
their landfill that they dumped the waste into was going to cause huge 
problems, environmental problems and health problems. And they lied about 
it."

split photos of officials testing a creek, the creek from an aerial view, 
children playing and swinging into creek
Coldwater Creek in St. Louis, an area where children and family visit, 
apparently was contaminated by toxic chemicals left behind by the 
Manhattan Project. The creek is now being sampled for radioactive material 
by the Army Corps of Engineers. (Army Corps of Engineers/Kay Drey 
Mallinckrodt Collection)

ENVIRONMENTALISTS CALL ON BIDEN ADMIN TO TANK NATURAL GAS PROJECT AMID 
NATIONWIDE ARCTIC BLAST

Hawley is pushing to expand and extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation 
Act, which will expire this year. The legislation would make it so people 
who may have been sickened by chemicals in St. Louis and other areas could 
receive compensation from the government.  

"We've come to find that St. Louis was a uranium processing site. So was 
Kentucky. So was Tennessee, that the extent of the testing that was done 
in the West was far greater than we knew," Hawley said. 

The documents included internal memos from Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, a 
company hired by the U.S. government to process chemicals for nuclear 
weapons. The cache also included testing and sampling from government 
agencies as well as warnings that sites exposed to those chemicals may not 
have been safe.

https://fxn.ws/3Qj7HBf

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/04/Mallinckrod
t-memo.pdf

"The evidence was there, the facts were there, and it told the story from 
beginning to end," Nickel said. 

Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis worked to process uranium that 
would eventually help create the first sustained nuclear chain reaction. 
After the plant shut down, the company worked to dispose of the chemicals. 
An internal memo from 1949 revealed workers discussed health and safety 
concerns that came with where they stored the waste.

"Point No. 2 concerns the problem of the disintegrating K-65 drums at the 
airport," the memo stated. "This is recognized as a severe problem." 

Federal officials first stored the waste at a site near St. Louis Airport. 
The location was near a creek that stretched 14 miles through North St. 
Louis County. The barrels were left out in the open and exposed to the 
elements.

"Right away, you could see that the government knew how dangerous this 
waste was," Chapman said. 

WHITE HOUSE ECO COUNCIL AT ODDS OVER TECHNOLOGY CENTRAL TO BIDEN'S GREEN 
GOALS

old photos of massive amount of chemical barrels
Barrels of waste remained out in the open in Missouri after the shutdown 
of a chemical plant tied to the Manhattan Project. (Kay Drey Mallinckrodt 
Collection)

The internal memo from Mallinckrodt detailed concerns among workers that 
the chemicals could have leaked into the creek."

The health hazard to workers handling the K-65 material, especially in 
broken drums, is much more serious and immediate than the possible hazard 
of stream pollution," it said. 

"They were so toxic that they were told, ‘Do not touch those. Those are 
too dangerous,’" Nickel said. 

High water and flooding have been additional yearly concerns along 
Coldwater Creek. 

"Of course, they wouldn't put dangerous waste next to a creek that 
floods," Chapman said. "They knew it was probably leaking into the creek, 
but they didn't know how much."

Army Corps of Engineers officials said because of the flooding throughout 
decades, their cleanup job today has been complex. 

backyard flooded by creek
Flooding and high waters occur annually along the potentially contaminated 
Coldwater Creek of St. Louis. (Karen Nickel )

JOE MANCHIN THREATENS TO OPPOSE BIDEN NOMINEES OVER UPCOMING POWER PLANT 
CRACKDOWN

"Wind and rain, and also flooding events, took some of those contaminants, 
and they were carried down the stream in the sediment and then deposited 
during flooding events and also just during the normal flow," U.S. Army 
Corps of Engineers St. Louis District Program Manager Phil Moser said. 
"This is all historical contamination from decades ago, and that's why 
it's so difficult today finding this contamination."

The Army Corps of Engineers has been sampling for radioactive material all 
along Coldwater Creek, some of which dated to before the St. Louis 
population boom.

"This was before homes were built. And lo and behold, in the late ‘50s and 
’60s, homes were being built on top of this," Nickel said. 

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, crews moved the waste to a different 
location near the airport and again left it out in the open. 

"The controls back in the day were surely not what they are now. That's 
why we're in the current situation," Moser said.

Map highlighting the St. Louis airport, coldwater creek, west lake 
landfill
Crews stored the Manhattan Project chemicals at multiple sites around St. 
Louis.  (Fox News)

Advocates and lawmakers, including Hawley, said the cleanup could move 
faster. 

"For years, the people of St. Louis were told, ‘Don't worry. There's no 
significant radiation.’ Or they were told, ‘Hey, we've cleaned it all up.’ 
In fact, those things were not true," Hawley said.

"It was taking years to do testing and really get the scope and magnitude 
of how contaminated North County is," Chapman said.  

Lawmakers push to renew, expand Radiation Exposure Compensation ActVideo
Testing from almost 50 years ago found possible contamination in parts of 
the creek. A 1977 report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 
Tennessee detailed samples from Coldwater Creek. Testing in drainage 
ditches, which carried run-off water into the creek, showed average 
radiation levels were almost five times higher than usual. 

"We haven't seen that level at these sites, since I've been here for 
sure," Moser said. 

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/04/TN-Lab-
Report.pdf

In the 1970s, workers moved the waste once again, this time to West Lake 
Landfill in Bridgeton, Missouri. 

"It is not possible in this United States of America to purchase a home 
next to a site that has Manhattan Project radioactive waste just sitting 
up for decades," Chapman said. 

Chadman, Nickel and thousands of others eventually would call 
neighborhoods near the West Lake Landfill home.

"The time to act is now. This should have been done 50 years ago, but it 
hasn't been. So, now it's time to do it," Hawley said. 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/officials-knew-manhattan-project-
chemicals-disposed-improperly-missouri-sites-documents-reveal

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Officials knew Manhattan Project chemicals disposed improperly at Missouri sites, documents reveal useapen <yourdime@outlook.com> - 2024-04-26 08:58 +0000

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