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What’s Next For Victims of Coldwater Creek Contamination?
Part II of a special two-part story on the issue of Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis County over the past 60 years. What’s going on today?
Somebody Must Have Known that Waste Dumped in Coldwater Creek was Not Safe
By Tom Anselm
It is usually not considered to be good form to start a column with questions, but here goes anyway. Did you live in the Hazelwood or Florissant area anytime from the 1950s to the early 2000s? Did you or someone you know who did live there get sick from cancer, or develop an auto-immune disease? Did anyone die from their illness? In the previous issue, I noted that I was wondering what was going on currently with the Coldwater Creek story (November 27, 2019)
I read that uranium waste was getting into the waterways and soil of many North St. Louis County communities by way of Coldwater Creek as it flowed by the nuclear waste dump sites near Berkeley and Lambert Airport. It was believed by many to have a direct relationship to people developing serious cancers and auto-immune diseases. And dying.
I checked the articles on websites and saw a Facebook page called “Coldwater Creek: Just the Facts, Please.” I had a great conversation with Kim Visintine, a former engineer and current trauma nurse who grew up in the area, and is one of the administrators of the Coldwater Creek page. She and her husband lost their 6 year-old son to brain cancer.
Cleanup of Affected Areas
Here is just a little bit of what has happened and what is continuing to happen with regard to remediating and cleaning up the affected areas, and what is going on with potential restitution. Please know, this is by no means an exhaustive account of these issues. Far better sources exist for that sort of fact-trip and analysis. I wanted only to know, and to share, a few facts. And, my opinion, as well.
Visintine told me that a final report from the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Reporting (ATSDR) came out in June of this past year. In its conclusions, it seems that the government concluded that radioactive waste from the federal weapons research at Mallinkrodt Chemical (during its work on the “Manhattan Project”) that were stored in barrels above ground in the North St. Louis County area and at Lambert Airport indeed contaminated Coldwater Creek. The water seeped in to the surrounding soil and people could be dying because of it.
She said that to get to this point, at last, the point of Federal acknowledgement, is huge, and comes from the efforts of people who have banded together, met with Federal agencies, held public forums, chronicled the many illnesses and deaths and kept this issue alive. Even as many of them and their family members have gotten sicker. And died. Some of these agencies are the Centers for Disease Control, the ATSDR (above), and The Army Corps of Engineers.
Visintine mentioned that the federal entities have worked cooperatively with the group, for the most part. There is an act called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 (RECA) that is designed to potentially provide recompense to victims of uranium-related illnesses. There is also the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), that works with the Corps of Engineers as it continues to do
clean-up in affected areas. The focus now is on what can be done for current and future residents of these areas. And what compensation can be made available for people, past and present, who were sickened and suffered and died by this terrible tragedy.
Somebody Had to Have Known
And now, my opinion. Well, somebody had to know this waste, this Uranium-238 and Thorium-232, the byproducts of uranium enrichment, was not safe. Why else would they have stuck barrels and barrels of this by-product of uranium enrichment in what was then vacant and undeveloped areas way out in the north side of the county?
It seemed that no one bothered to check on the dumps. Until it had dispersed into the entire region, until it had poisoned so many who had moved there during the post-war housing boom. Until it was too late. Kids living there in the mid-to-late part of the last century… so many ill. Their kids, sick. DNA has been altered. So many diseases, (21 listed that potentially qualify for compensation). So many, gone. Somebody had to know. What is government neglect? Benign indifference? Hard to say. But the damage has been done, and continues to be done.
So what now? Clean-up continues. You may have noticed the repeated use of the word ‘potential’ regarding compensation. Visintine said the acknowledgement of responsibility in the ATSDR report was necessary for people to move forward on that issue. Coldwater Creek people have not yet been approved for RECA. Much work needs to be done. This story will continue. I hope my last two reports have shed some light, helped in awareness, and advanced the discussion. This story, this tragic story, will continue, for many years to come. (For more info, contact Kim Visintine at kvisintine@sbcglobal.net, and visit the FB page “Coldwater Creek: Just the Facts Please.”)
