The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a third 鈥渁nd final鈥 report Tuesday on sampling results from Jana Elementary School 鈥 the north 最新杏吧原创 County school shuttered after on-site radioactivity linked to the dawn of the nation鈥檚 nuclear weapons program was detected last year.
The latest report from the Corps focused on sampling soil on the Florissant school鈥檚 property and 鈥渃onfirms that the immediate school grounds are safe from a radiological standpoint,鈥 the agency said in a press release.
鈥漈here are no areas of radiological concern in or around the school,鈥 said Phil Moser, a program manager from the Corps鈥 最新杏吧原创 District, in a statement. The new report builds on and reinforces the agency鈥檚 earlier findings, which have maintained that the property鈥檚 radiation does not exceed expected background levels, he said.
Health and safety concerns at Jana erupted last year after a private testing firm found high levels of radioactivity inside the school and around its playground. The contaminants are linked to the adjacent Coldwater Creek, flowing alongside the property, which has long been a local conduit of radioactive contaminants tied to the Manhattan Project that developed nuclear weapons during World War II.
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最新杏吧原创鈥 Mallinckrodt Chemical processed uranium used in the war effort and into the 1950s. Resulting radioactive waste was stored at two points along the creek 鈥 first at the airport, and later, it was moved to an industrial area on Latty Avenue.
At Jana, the Corps is 鈥currently in the process of removing the actual contamination in the Coldwater Creek creekbank which we anticipate completing this fall, to be followed by a separate post-remediation report,鈥 Moser said.
The final report looked at soil taken from outside of the current area where the Corps鈥 cleanup work is targeted. The Corps said that, after analyzing a total of 507 soil samples, the area 鈥渕eets the criteria for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure.鈥
The Corps will discuss all three of its reports at a public meeting on June 8.
Coldwater Creek's issues with radioactive soil begin with work done near downtown 最新杏吧原创 for the Manhattan Project during World War II. We summarize the concerns about the creek and how radioactive material contaminated it.
