ST. LOUIS — U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) sent a letter Wednesday urging the Energy and Natural Resources committee to hold a hearing on radioactive contamination in the St. Louis area.
In the letter sent to Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Hawley called for a hearing to discuss the contamination and the steps taken by government agencies to remediate it.
The letter comes a week after the Associated Press published a report outlining the findings of previously unreleased documents. The Associated Press reported that the documents showed the federal government and companies responsible for nuclear bomb production and atomic waste storage sites in the St. Louis area in the mid-20th century were aware of health risks, spills, improperly stored contaminants and other problems but often ignored them.
"These reports reveal that contamination in the St. Louis area may prove to be among the most significant government-caused environmental disasters in our nation’s history," Hawley wrote in the letter. "What’s worse, it’s now clear that the Federal government knew about the contamination but failed to appropriately inform the public."
He called for a hearing as soon as possible to investigate the contamination.
Federal health investigators have found an increased cancer risk for some people who, as children, played in a creek contaminated with uranium waste. A grade school closed last year amid radiation concerns. A landfill operator is spending millions to keep underground smoldering from reaching nuclear waste illegally dumped in the 1970s.
The AP examined hundreds of pages of internal memos, inspection reports and other items dating to the early 1950s, and found nonchalance and indifference to the risks of materials used in the development of nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
Dawn Chapman, co-founder of the group Just Moms STL, first got involved with the efforts to raise awareness in 2013.
Her purpose then is the same now: to have the government clean up and compensate their communities.
She noted the significance of Hawley's letter.
Chapman said, "What we're seeing today for the first time is we've been covering individual sites that have had been impacted by the Manhattan waste from Weldon Spring, to Coldwater Creek, Downtown St. Louis, to West Lake. But we're all one site today."
She is eager for victims to have a chance to speak in the hearing. She hopes she can be one of the people to head to the country's capitol.
This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press. The government documents were obtained by outside researchers through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with news organizations.
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