Crews working to clean up the West Lake Landfill in St. Louis County detected contamination in nearby groundwater, forcing government officials to find out whether radium might have left the site.
Toxic Leftover
For several years already, residents of St. Louis County have been concerned with a rise in cancer diagnoses, especially those living outside the West Lake Landfill.
Over the years since 1962, the landfill has accepted thousands of tons of radioactive waste and contaminated soil. Drums of the toxic chemicals were illegally dumped by a contractor for a Colorado-based company called the Cotter Corporation.
Forty tons of uranium oxide used to make the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project were manufactured at an industrial site in downtown St. Louis called Mallinckrodt. The facility went on producing pure uranium during the Cold War.
In 1973, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works took advantage of this free dumping in the West Lake Landfill and even subcontracted Cotter Corporation to do so.
Generations of families who moved to St. Louis County since the end of World War II have been battling rare cancers and autoimmune diseases believed to stem from playing in the creeks nearby. These areas reveal radiation readings that are well above drinking water limits.
The hazardous materials leach into the ground through rain or surface run-off and settle into the aquifers. Being a naturally radioactive metal, radium has been connected to increased lung and bone cancer. These are forms of cancer which have increased in the area.
Scientists tested the landfill in the 1980s and found very high levels of radium. This was while people were having spikes in cancer diagnoses.
In 2010, a fire broke underground about 1,000 feet (304.8 meters) away from the West Lake Landfill, which currently has not been extinguished. The incident fumed through the region's sulfur-like compounds.
The age-adjusted lung cancer mortality rate was 38.5 per 100,000 persons in St. Louis County during the period from 2015 to 2019. Although higher than the national average, it is lower than Missouri's rate.
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Radioactive Wasteland Cleanup
This year, Missouri officials initiated a cleanup program for the site. On July 1, it found out that the toxins contaminated nearby groundwater in Bridgeton which is located northwest of the St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The US. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered levels of chemicals that were above limits for drinking water. The agency did not confirm the amount of radium detected in the groundwater.
The EPA will also see if it leaked into nearby wells or if the toxins have reached the Missouri River. A spokesperson stated that no conclusions about the sources of radium in the off-site groundwater have been made since the data collection is still underway.
Experts will analyze the information from the well network and draw conclusions about the nature and extent of groundwater impacts once the data have been gathered. The findings are to be presented in the Remedial Investigation Report.
Allowing ultra-hazardous waste next to people's property and not taking responsibility for it is a major problem, according to Kenneth B. McClain, senior partner of Humphrey, Farrington & McClain, which currently has a case in pursuit. McClain also claims that landfills are the poster child of health problems, and authorities have no right to leave people to reside near nuclear waste and not have somebody responsible for it.
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