最新杏吧原创

William, an aerospace engineer, took a job with McDonnell Aircraft; Dorothy became active in school issues and was elected to the board of the Ferguson-Florissant School District.听

Cancer cut their lives short. William, 52, died in 1972 of lymphoma. Five years later, Dorothy passed away, also of lymphoma. She was 56. Lymphoma also would claim one of their three adult children, in 2009.

For Linda Morice, the Cunninghams鈥� daughter, the deaths seemed more than coincidence, given what seemed like a high incidence of cancer among those who lived in the area in the 1950s and 鈥�60s. She recalls her physician uncle, Dr. Herman Moyer of Wichita, visiting Florissant in her mother鈥檚 final days, remarking: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe St. Louie is a very healthy place to live. Everybody on the street has some damn tumor.鈥�

As Morice writes in 鈥淣uked: Echoes of the Hiroshima Bomb in 最新杏吧原创,鈥� the common thread that appeared to link these illnesses and deaths was Coldwater Creek, the 19-mile Missouri River tributary that starts at a spring-fed lake in Overland and winds through North County, including near her family鈥檚 former Florissant home.

The creek, as readers of the Post-Dispatch know, was contaminated by radioactive waste produced by Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. The 最新杏吧原创 company was tasked with refining uranium ore for the wartime Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.听

Mallinckrodt initially did the top-secret work at its Destrehan Street plant north of downtown 最新杏吧原创, storing the waste on-site. But beginning in 1946, the waste was trucked to a 21.74-acre property north of the city-owned airport in north 最新杏吧原创 County, where it was piled next to Wabash Railroad tracks. In 1966, some of it was moved a half-mile away to a Latty Avenue site in Hazelwood. (In 1973, about 8,700 tons of barium sulfate waste at the Latty site 鈥� containing a low concentration of uranium 鈥斕齱as mixed with about 39,000 tons of topsoil and dumped at West Lake Landfill,听.)听

Both the airport and Latty sites were near Coldwater Creek, and some of the radioactive waste, exposed to the elements, spilled into the creek and moved north. Flooding helped spread it. So did the wind and trucks that transported it. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were exposed. Concerns that their health was likely compromised were borne out in at least two key studies听鈥� and 听鈥� that showed a higher incidence of certain cancers in affected communities.

Morice wondered how it was possible for such an environmental and health catastrophe to unfold in a major metropolitan area 鈥� and why government and industry responded so slowly. In search of answers, the professor emerita of educational leadership at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, reconstructs the story, starting with the launch of the atomic bomb program.

She largely leans on government reports and newspaper coverage, including an eight-part series published by the Post-Dispatch in 1989. Morice doesn鈥檛 break new ground here, but she does a good job of distilling key details into an easy-to-follow narrative.

One early report 鈥� although incorrectly credited by government reports and Morice to the Post-Dispatch 鈥� came in September 1946, * that 鈥渃ertain residue materials from the refining of uranium ores鈥� had been secretly stored just north of the airport for months. But Mallinckrodt 鈥渙fficials鈥� and 鈥渟ecurity officers鈥� assured the Star-Times reporter that the stored materials were 鈥渘ot radio-active and not dangerous.鈥� The mayor of the recently incorporated city of Berkeley told the Star-Times: 鈥淚f they say the material is not dangerous, we have to take their word for it.鈥�

Morice pushes the story further, looking at how local government fragmentation played a role in limiting the response, how building and environmental practices at the time contributed, and how government and corporate secrecy and lies kept the public in the dark. She also takes note of the demographic changes in North County that have seen new residents moving into areas with old problems 鈥� and not being told of the potential risks.听听

As Post-Dispatch reporter Jesse Bogan found in late 2021, many people who have moved to the area aren鈥檛 aware of the contamination or they believe it is limited to the area by the airport, not miles downstream. Their confusion is understandable. The story is complicated, involving an alphabet soup of government agencies and multiple businesses (many now defunct); numerous reports, studies and lawsuits; and sporadic news coverage.

The sources of contamination by the airport and nearby Latty Avenue have been largely remediated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The focus now is testing and cleaning up the rest of the creek, but there is disagreement between the Corps and some residents on the scope of the work. Residents who don鈥檛 want anything left behind are frustrated 鈥� especially since the Corps鈥� latest timetable stretches the work into 2038, nearly a century after Mallinckrodt first started refining uranium ore. New revelations 鈥� including a disputed report last year of possible contamination at an elementary school in Florissant 鈥� keep neighbors on edge.

Morice concedes she doesn鈥檛 know if the mishandling of Mallinckrodt waste is to blame for her family鈥檚 illnesses and early deaths 鈥� nobody can say for sure 鈥� but 鈥渢heir experiences,鈥� she writes, 鈥渟uggest that radiological contamination in Coldwater Creek has affected area residents for a long time.鈥�

_____

* The Star-Times story was prompted by a condemnation lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in 最新杏吧原创 on Sept. 23, 1946, seeking ownership of 21.74 acres in north 最新杏吧原创 County near the city of 最新杏吧原创-owned airport. The purpose of the acquisition, according to the lawsuit, was 鈥渇or storage facilities for the Manhattan District Project, and for related military purposes.鈥� The land was owned by sisters Elizabeth Callaway and Mary Callaway Porcher of Warrensburg, Missouri. The Callaways were nieces of the late Annie Callaway, a niece of Judge James C. Edwards, a major landowner who died in 1883; the land likely was a family inheritance.听The Star-Times story said the property had been used 鈥渟ecretly for several months for storage of 鈥榗ertain residue materials from the refining of uranium ores鈥� at the Manhattan District atomic plant at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works.鈥� That would imply it was being used to dump waste before the federal government gained control. The lawsuit, however, says the property owners agreed in March 6, 1946, to convey the property to the federal government, but sought the condemnation procedure. [Added Feb. 3, 2023.]