Federal investigators are looking for a scientific link between radioactive contamination of Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis County and reports of illness and cancers among residents who live nearby.
Subdivisions and residential developments sprang up for decades near and around the area, as families unknowingly purchased homes nearby and children played in or near the creek. Processed uranium residue stored at the St. Louis Airport Storage Site and the old Hazelwood Interim Storage Site on Latty Ave. is on the National Priorities List.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an independent agency administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the lead agency on the Public Health Assessment (PHA). The current PHA is a follow-up to a 1994 assessment of the St. Louis Airport Site, which evaluated creek waters. Since that time, ATSDR said the US Army Corps of Engineers continued evaluation of water, sediment and soil on properties near the creek.
ATSDR hosted its second public meeting on January 26 at the Jamestown Bluffs branch of the St. Louis County Public Library. It is part of an ongoing process of helping residents understand the PHA process, identify specific concerns and learn of ways the community may have come in contact with Coldwater Creek.
A representative for the ATSDR, told the American that the current assessment is based on more recent environmental data, as well as updated community concerns.
Federal, state and county representatives at the meeting heard heart-wrenching accounts of cancer deaths and illness of persons who grew up in the area or played in Coldwater Creek. One mother’s son is one of them.
“You’re saying there is no link; there are too many people in one area coming up with cancer. These boys played in the creek. I can’t see how you all don’t see there’s a link.
There is a definite link. My son has brain cancer,” she said. “It doesn’t just affect the person that it happens to – it affects the people that have to deal with him. I had to give up my whole life for him, to take care of my son. And I know several people who have children that have played in Coldwater Creek and their kids have cancer.”
Residents also talked about the prohibitive costs of cancer treatments and medications.
Teri Biondo described how her brother was changing oil in her vehicle one year and he was gone the next.
“He had cancer of his lungs, in his pancreas, in his brain and spine and spinal surgery, brain surgery – and he died within a year,” Teri Biondo said.
About 200 residents attended the most recent meetings. While there were plenty of anecdotal reports of current and former residents developing and succumbing to cancers, the Corps must gather scientific data through its PHA process, said Lieutenant Commander Erin Evans, an environmental health specialist with the U.S. Public Health Service, ATSDR.
The history of the radioactive contamination of Coldwater Creek dates back to World War II. Mallinckrodt processed uranium ore in downtown St. Louis from 1942 to 1957 as a contractor for the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission as part of the government’s nuclear weapons production. Residue from that process was taken to sites in North County by the airport, where they dried the radioactive waste material before it was shipped to Colorado for burial.
During the 1960s, partial remediation included demolishing existing buildings, burying the wastes on-site and covering the area with about three feet of clean fill. The ATSDR website states additional wastes were moved to the Weldon Springs Quarry or to the West Lake Landfill in St. Louis County.
FUSRAP, the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, was established in 1974 to address the cleanup of sites contaminated due to former use for nuclear weapons production. Since 1977, cleanup has been the responsibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which states it has removed more than a million cubic yards of contamination from sites in downtown St. Louis and North St. Louis County.
Currently, contractors for FUSRAP have taken samples in a 3.4-mile stretch of Coldwater Creek and its 10-year flood plain. Last summer, St. Cin Park in Hazelwood was closed to undergo several months of work to remove soil contaminated by radioactivity from the creek. Recent testing resulted in the Corps finding radioactive soil at three homes and four businesses near Coldwater Creek.
This year, the Corps will sample the next four-mile stretch of Coldwater Creek, from St. Denis Bridge to Old Halls Ferry Road.
The big issue, Evans said, is that Coldwater Creek does not look the same as it did 50-60 years ago.
Evans said, “Quite a bit of development has occurred over time; the creek has been rerouted and there have been projects by the Metropolitan Sewer District that have created storm drains or been a development of community and of homes.”
She said investigators will take into account those changes as well as input from residents and sampling results to make any recommendations on what needs to happen.
“If we find anything at any point and time that is elevated, that warrants shutting the place down, we aren’t going to wait to take some action.”
Evans said on average, a public health assessment takes 18-24 months.
“And this is huge. We are not looking at only one instance… we’re looking at what spans decades,” Evans reminded.
For people who are stricken with illness and deplete of financial resources, time is of the essence.
“Eighteen to 24 months? We’ve got people with illnesses that aren’t going to make it,” a woman said. “The sooner we get to where those of us who have health issues are being talked to about them, then the better it seems that people are actually doing something, vs. just telling us this is going to take a while.”
The State and County are also working with ATSDR and the Corps on this issue.
Evans said she would look into bringing in a nuclear health physicist an epidemiologist to answer more specific questions in future meetings.
The next meeting on Coldwater Creek will be held February 17 at the James Eagan Center in Florissant from 6p.m. to 8 p.m.
Historical summary about the sites affected by Coldwater Creek can be found on the ATSDR website at this shortened link: http://tinyurl.com/zg2le59.
A community-based website has been created at www.coldwatercreekfacts.com.
