Environmental Justice is a system of thought which asserts that all people have a right to equal environmental hazard protection and access to the decision-making process upon which their welfare hinges. Moreover, this paradigm recognizes that marginalized groups are, by far, the most affected by environmental harms. Environmental Justice and Incarceration my not seem to have much in common at first glance, however, over a thousand prisons across America are home to shocking toxic hazards.
Independent cartographer Paige Williams claims that at least 589 federal and state prisons are located within three miles of a Superfund cleanup site on the National Priorities List, with 134 of those prisons located within just one mile. Furthermore, it is common practice to build prisons on former industrial cites which are hosts to a myriad of health hazards.
Paul Wright, Executive Director of the Human Rights Defense Fund, explains that “one of the patterns that we see is where corporations have come in, they pillage the environment, be it by mining, forestry or whatever, and then when everything has been exhausted, when trees have been cut down, every last grain of ore has been ripped from the soil, and everything has been contaminated and poisoned in the process, the final solution is, okay now we’re going to build a prison here.”
SCI Fayette is one of many such prisons, located on the corner of an abandoned coal preparation plant which has become a dumpsite, containing 45 million tons of coal refuse. Coal ash exposure can lead to a host of conditions, including respiratory problems, hypertension, heart problems, brain and nervous system damage, liver damage, stomach and intestinal ulcers, and many forms of cancer, including skin, stomach, lung, urinary tract and kidney. A 2014 review found that 81 percent of the 75 prisoners who responded to a health survey claimed to suffer from respiratory, throat and sinus conditions; 68 percent experienced gastrointestinal problems; 52 percent reported adverse skin conditions; and 12 percent said they were diagnosed with a thyroid disorder. The report also noted 11 of the 17 prisoners who died at SCI Fayette between 2010 and 2013 had died of cancer.
Kenneth Hartman, who nearly died from contracting a fungal infection in a California State prison, asserts that “prisons found to be a serious health risk need to be closed. The changes made [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][to address valley fever] are about managing risk and trying to avoid lawsuits, not about fixing the problems of a massively dysfunctional prison system.” He alludes to a larger issue with the public mindset: “the problem is, the intersection of environmental justice and mass incarceration runs right into the teeth of prisoners not being considered worthy of justice. If we complain about dirty water, or poor ventilation systems, or inadequate medical care, there is a collective societal shrug: You should have thought about that before you committed crime.”
Mass incarceration traps thousands of Americans in areas of life-threatening toxic exposure. We cannot go on turning a blind eye to this sickening abuse of human rights.
Action Resources:
Join the Prison Ecology Project Campaign: http://nationinside.org/campaign/prison-ecology/
Citations:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40756-america-s-toxic-prisons-the-environmental-injustices-of-mass-incarceration
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/jun/3/ncarceration-justice-and-planet-how-fight-against-toxic-prisons-may-shape-future-environmentalism/[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Author: CHEJ Intern
Towards the end of August, Just Moms STL hosted two candidate forums about the West Lake Landfill with a combined attendance of 120 different community members. Both events invited the candidates from the Democratic and Republican Party in races for Congress, the Senate, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and the Missouri Senate and General Assembly. In total, 26 candidates (some repeats) showed up to both events to tell community members what they would do if elected about the West Lake Landfill.
Both Republicans and Democrats at the event agreed on the need for removal of the radioactive waste present in the landfill and almost universally supported H.R. 4100, the bill transferring jurisdiction over the cleanup from the EPA to the Army Corps of Engineers. In an era where bipartisanship is rare to see on any issue, the realization across the aisle that something must be done on the West Lake Landfill is notable and refreshing. Jason Kander, a Democrat running for the Senate, pledged to community members, “you’ll be a top concern for me” and “my wife reminds me that you are why I am running for office, because she is a mom too.” Similarly, Mark Matthiesen, a Republican running for the Missouri State Senate, argued that the EPA isn’t proactive enough on the issue and pushed for relocation for the families.
All candidates also pledged to send a representative to Just Moms STL community meetings, an important show of support for the organization and the larger Bridgeton community. The fact that candidates for public office across the state saw the need to address the community speaks to its power. I’ve been working with Just Moms STL for over three months now and I am continually impressed by their resolve and determination to fight back against Republic Services (the owner of the West Lake Landfill) and even the government itself in order to protect themselves and their children. It is through events like the West Lake Candidate Forums that Just Moms STL has demonstrated that it is an important force in the Bridgeton community, one I strongly feel will succeed in removing the radioactive waste present in their community.
For more information about the events themselves, look up #WestLakeForum on Twitter and to view the live video stream of both events, visit the Just Moms STL Facebook page.
Just yesterday, the federal state of emergency in Flint, Michigan over lead-contaminated water expired. What comes next for a community continuing to deal with a public health crisis?
Residents in Flint have been understandably concerned about the August 14th deadline, as Michigan Radio reports. President Obama declared a Federal State of Emergency over Flint’s poisoned water on January 15th of this year, making 5 million dollars of federal money available to help with the crisis. With the state of emergency in place, the federal government has covered 75% of costs necessary for providing bottled water, filters, filter cartridges, and home testing kits to Flint residents. This aid isn’t going away, according to state officials; instead, the state will be picking up the tab for the necessary supplies –estimated to cost 3.5 million dollars a month, based on current water needs (approximately 10,000 cases of water a week.)
Will those needs remain steady, or have they reached their peak? Current testing suggests conditions in Flint are improving. NPR reports that Virginia Tech researchers, who first exposed the lead contamination, found no detectable levels in half of the homes they tested last month. One expert described Flint as “entering a range that’s considered normal for other U.S. cities.” Unfortunately, water contamination is not unique to Flint, and what’s considered ‘normal’ around the U.S. may simply not be safe enough.
Lead is not the only threat to water supplies across the United States. In addition to known and regulated contaminants, emerging contaminants that have yet to be evaluated may be impacting our water supplies. According to the EPA, many streams that supply water nationwide are not covered by clean-water laws. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Jeffrey K. Griffiths, a public health expert at Tufts University and former chairperson of the EPA’s Drinking Water Committee, noted that we have “lots of really good professionals in the water industry…but it doesn’t take much for our aging infrastructure or an unprofessional actor to allow that protection to fall apart.”
Given the financial aftermath of the Flint crisis, it’s unsurprising that some ‘unprofessional actors’ were hesitant to disclose the unsafe drinking water conditions. The cost of supplying water to Flint residents is just the beginning; Governor Snyder’s original application for federal aid estimated that as much as 55 million dollars would be needed to repair damaged lead service lines in Flint. The consequences are steep for a city whose crisis originated with a water supply switch intended to cut costs.
Most critically, the crisis in Flint has called into question the trust that we place in our federal, state and local officials to disclose threats to our safety presented by unsafe water. In Flint, the lead contamination persisted for years before it was discovered, and even longer before it was disclosed to the public. Even if water treatments and infrastructure repairs are ultimately successful and lead is undetectable in every Flint household, residents may never again trust their water supply, or the reports they are given about it by their local and state officials. Water can be treated and pipes can be replaced, but trust is much more difficult to repair. In the meantime, at least Flint residents will continue to have access to clean, bottled water. Whether they will trust their faucets again in the future is another matter entirely.
Categories
An Issue We Can All Get Behind
Every blog I have written during my time at the CHEJ has focused on or mentioned the West Lake Landfill. No wonder, considering how the majority of my work here has dealt with promoting awareness about the landfill. But the reason why I continue to write about it is because the inaction and inattentiveness shown by some public officials towards this issue angers me.
There is no excuse for delaying the clean-up of a toxic waste site that poses a threat to public health and potentially threatens the community’s water source. When a Tea Party Republican like Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer and Progressive Democrat like Lacy Clay can agree on the EPA’s mismanagement of West Lake, you know there’s a problem. No room for argument exists as to whether Superfund sites (those recognized by our government as hazardous and toxic) should be top priorities for our public officials. And yet Superfund sites languish across the country.
In addition to the West Lake Landfill, sites in San Jacinto, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama have gone unresolved. The San Jacinto Waste Pit received wastes from a nearby paper mill, depositing harmful dioxins “which are extremely toxic and can cause increased risk of cancer and other threats to human health such as liver damage and birth defects.” The waste pit is also directly near the San Jacinto River and puts the local environment and community drinking water at grave risk. And yet the EPA comes back with temporary cap plans rather than a plan towards a permanent solution. Similarly, the Birmingham community is dealing with the aftermath of the ABC Coke Plant’s pollution at the 35th Avenue Superfund Site. Containing contaminated soil and groundwater, the Birmingham Superfund site also remains an issue and shows the EPA’s preference for lip service over action on toxic waste sites.
Superfund issues have one clear answer: they must be a priority and any threat to families and the public must be immediately addressed. Every day that a site goes unaddressed is another day that a community is put at risk. It’s just common sense that communities should have access to safe, clean drinking water and not live near hazardous waste sites that have gone largely unaddressed by the government. Protecting communities from environmental disasters should be an issue we can all get behind.
We are deep in the middle of an ugly and divisive election season with two presidential candidates regularly described by polls as the most unpopular in decades. This year’s partisan advertisements and speeches are enough to turn off anyone from politics. One could be forgiven for wondering if politicians can actually work together on an urgent issue that demands attention.
That’s why the cooperative tone currently shown by Missouri’s senators and congressional representatives on the outrage of the West Lake Landfill is such a breath of fresh air. The West Lake Landfill, a landfill containing radioactive waste right next to a landfill on fire, is owned by Republic Services and is a Superfund site managed by the EPA. The health and safety concerns of the community have taken a back seat to political self-interest due to agency concerns and Republic’s political influence over elected officials.
But rather than shamefully protect Republic Services or defend the EPA’s baffling inactivity, Missouri’s congressional delegation has taken a strong stance standing up for local Bridgeton community. After the tireless work of Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, two co-founders of the group Just Moms STL, Missouri’s elected officials both hear their concerns and have acted to fix the problem. Nearly one year ago, Senators Blunt and McCaskill and Representatives Clay and Wagner introduced H.R. 4100 to transfer authority over the cleanup from the EPA to the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency trusted by the Bridgeton community because they successfully remediated similar sites in the area. Blunt and McCaskill were able to unanimously pass the bill through the Senate, an action that is practically unheard of in a gridlocked Washington. Clay and Wagner testified at a Superfund hearing one week ago, forcefully denouncing the EPA’s inactivity and giving voice to a Bridgeton community concerned by West Lake’s current impact and its potentially catastrophic effects.
While these actions aren’t enough by themselves, they are without a doubt an achievement for concerned local activists like Chapman and Nickel. The bipartisan action on the landfill absolutely speaks to its pressing nature and proves that focusing on relocation of the families affected is an issue Democrats and Republicans can get behind. In a political era where bipartisan socializing let alone action is rare, the fact that the Missouri delegation is attempting to fix the long overdue problem at West Lake is admirable.
Just Moms STL is planning on fostering this bipartisan spirit by hosting an event in Maryland Heights on August 18th called the “West Lake Candidate Forum” where Democrats and Republicans will personally tell voters their plan to address the West Lake Landfill. We can only hope that more elected officials recognize that the people of Bridgeton need this issue to be immediately addressed and resolved.
Categories
Grassroots Green Hero: Eva Telesco
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Interview by Erin Allegro
Eva M. Telesco is a volunteer leader of Lancaster Against Pipelines working against Atlantic Sunrise Project, a proposed fracked-gas pipeline that would be double the size of most such pipelines — 42 inches in diameter and 1200 to 1500 PSI — leading to possible environmental disaster.
Telesco shared a few stories about her group’s work on the frontlines and how CHEJ has been of help to them with intern Erin Allegro recently.
Q: When did you first notice that the community was at risk due to the Atlantic Sunrise Project?
A: My husband and I didn’t learn about the Atlantic Sunrise Project until the fall of 2014. Other people in our community had known since that spring how dangerous it could be and how close it would be to our homes. When we first heard about it we said to each other “Oh, a pipeline? Aren’t they everywhere? Big deal.” Luckily, other people were more aware of the reality and the risks, and LAP was formed early in 2014 when the project was announced and the first scoping meetings happened.
Q: What did the county do to notify people of the problems with the pipeline that will carry fracking gas through five counties? What solutions or precautions were advised?
A: A lot of this happened before I had been involved, but in the township where I live, residents organized several town meetings. I learned about the pipeline at a community meeting at the fire hall. There were also a few township wide mailers, all funded by private citizens.
Conestoga residents just sent one out to advertise the walk and keep people up to date with the recent route changes and other news. Most of Lancaster Against Pipeline communication has been through the website, as well as Facebook and emails because we don’t have the money to do huge mailings. Our E-newsletter went out to give residents necessary information.
The township didn’t give us any solutions. The supervisors in our towns and all the neighboring towns generally, have been very unsupportive of our side. Even the fire hall meetings and mailings were initiated by private citizens. The township supervisors did not step up at all, and their stance was that they wanted to remain neutral, but in actuality it’s much more like they are siding with industry rather than residents and neighbors.
Q: What were some events experienced by community members?
A: In the spring of 2015, two of the affected townships [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Martic and Conestoga], tried to adopt home rule, a form of government that gives townships and individual voters more flexibility and more voice in the governing process, and would have hopefully allowed voters to pass a Rights Based Ordinance against the pipeline. Especially in the township where I live, the vote ended up being close, but we ended up losing in both townships.
That took a lot of time and energy and a lot of community meetings as well as door to door canvassing and working with voters. After this failed we moved to more of a countywide focus.
We started the Protect PA quilt project shortly after. We worked on getting groups and individuals to make quilt squares. We attended local fairs and car shows with a table with information about the pipeline, as well as supplies to make the quilt squares. Now the quilt is so large we have ten five-by-five panels. In March 2016, when we completed our tenth panel and the quilt reached 50 feet, the same distance as the permanent right-of-way for the proposed pipeline, we held a press conference at a local farm that would be bisected by the pipeline. Last summer a lot of our work was based around this quilt project.
This spring, we were able to do outreach with affected landowners; more than 40 landowners in Lancaster County have not signed contracts with Williams, the pipeline company. We visit with information and little messages of encouragement. Last month, we gave out a small plant as a gift and this month we are giving out information about eminent domain and what it will look like for the affected landowners.
We are just trying to support the landowners and help them stand up to the Williams Company. There are some owners that are a part of our group and some who are resisting, but are not actively engaged with us. They want to be more private about it.
Two weeks ago, Conestoga residents organized a walk against the Pipeline. About 200 people came out to walk approximately 3.1 miles, starting at a landowners farm, continuing down Main Street and ending at the park. We were really excited about the turnout and there was great energy. We brought in some new people and had new volunteers as well as many more people joining! Last week, at the Lancaster FERC meeting we had a huge turnout. The newspapers estimated about 300 people came out, mostly in opposition to the pipeline. The meeting was very dramatic and contentious with a lot of people speaking out and adding great comments. The meeting ended with our supporters singing the FERC representatives off the stage.
Q: How has this issue affected you or your family specifically?
A: It has really opened my eyes to all kinds of other environmental issues that I was only a little bit aware of but kind of ignoring until it hit so close to home. It has turned our lives upside down; we are involved in some kind of pipeline activity 3-4 nights a week and we are spending probably 10-15 hours a week on pipeline related work. Our four-year-old son is coming to meetings and rallies with us and it’s absolutely crazy trying to balance activism and our normal lives.
Q: What media coverage and help of outside organizations were you able to secure? How has it changed the response?
A: The Sierra Club has been really supportive. They sent a mass email form letter to all regional Sierra Club members; individuals could submit the letter as is, or modify, during the comment period of the DEIS. The local media has been fairly involved with relatively good coverage. In their effort to remain unbiased the media has represented us well, but has also put in even-handed words on behalf of Williams as well.
We have also worked with many other groups, like the Clean Air Council and the Delaware River keepers. Locally, the Lancaster Conservancy and the Lancaster Farmland Trust have been very supportive. They made strong statements at the FERC meeting in Lancaster. Our allies have helped us to get good coverage in the media as well.
Q: What do you want other citizens to know as they move forward in their communities with similar issues with their local environment?
A:It’s very hard work, but it’s worth doing. People have to believe that we can stop pipelines! I think the current climate is starting to change. More folks are against these projects and we just have to keep fighting until leaders and politicians catch up. Anyone that wants to get connected please reach out! We are happy to offer advice, help others and attend events to help in any way we can.
Learn more about grassroots heroes on the front lines who work with CHEJ by staying up to date on our blogs and signing up for our e-mails here. [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
As President Obama’s final year in office comes to a close, the time has come to reflect upon his legacy and his impact on our country. Perhaps more than other areas, Obama’s environmental record is a mixed bag of laudable achievements and startling mismanagement. Though his actions on climate change will rightfully be praised in the future, some of the more glaring cases of the EPA’s inattentive management in the last several years will be blemishes on his record.
From Flint to the West Lake Landfill in St. Louis, the EPA has proven itself to be maddeningly unresponsive. Despite knowing about the problem with Flint’s water nearly a year before intense press coverage, the EPA did nothing to alert the public or force the issue. Instead, the EPA sought to shift the blame entirely to state officials. In regards to Flint, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy simply understated, “clearly the outcome was not what anyone would have wanted.”Additionally, an EPA internal report released a week ago about the West Lake Landfill said that officials knew that removing the toxic waste from the landfill was both possible and relatively inexpensive — and still they chose to do nothing.
All of which leads one to wonder who exactly the EPA works for: the communities who need people in power to responsibly listen and respond to them or glib politicians and waste service companies out for their own interests? Administrator McCarthy needs to prioritize families over giving corporations a break. And each of her deputies must think first of public health and the environment rather than their own personal job prospects.
Though the EPA is an independent agency, Obama is more than able to influence its agenda and responsiveness. In the last year of his presidency, Obama is no longer chained to his own election chances and has more room to simply do the right thing regardless of the political consequences.
So I pose the following to President Obama: what do you want your environmental legacy to be? Allowing corporations to shamefully put the health of families at risk and letting politicians ignore pressing problems in service of their personal ambition? Or standing up for everyday Americans against such powerful corporations and non-responsive public servants? The fate of many communities depends on his choice.
Our use of fossil fuels is driving carbon dioxide levels higher and accelerating global warming. However, most of the impacts from our overuse of coal and oil fall on people who haven’t yet been born, much less had the chance to contribute significantly to climate change. Should future generations be able to sue over global warming? According to several courts in the United States, the answer is yes.
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In mid-April, twenty-one young people received the go-ahead from an Oregon judge that their lawsuit against the U.S. government for failing to act on climate change could proceed. The plaintiffs, between ages 8 and 19, alleged that the federal government, by failing to act on climate change and continuing our pattern of polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, has caused harm to today and tomorrow’s youth, and violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Previous climate-related lawsuits have focused mainly on violations to specific environmental laws, and this was the first to focus purely on constitutional rights. The federal government and the fossil fuel industry moved to dismiss the lawsuit, but the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
In Washington State, young people recently won a major victory against climate change. A group of eight children filed a lawsuit against the Washington State Ecology department for endangering their rights by not taking strict measures against climate change. The court ruled that the state must create rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2016, fulfilling their responsibility to protect air quality for future generations. Late in May, a group of four young people in Massachusetts won a lawsuit in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ordered the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to set stronger regulations against greenhouse gases. These groups, as well as the students in Oregon, were represented by the non-profit group Our Children’s Trust. This group also has pending cases in North Carolina and Colorado, and is engaged in international work.
According to experts on climate change, future generations will bear the brunt of global warming impacts. This week, Dr. Frederica Perera of Columbia University penned an op-ed for Environmental Health News about why our climate change policies should focus on children. While adults do suffer illness and death as a result of fossil fuel pollution, children’s health and development suffer profoundly from our lack of regulation. “While air pollution and the adverse health impacts of climate change affect us all,” Perera writes, “they are most damaging to children, especially the developing fetus and young child and particularly those of low socioeconomic status, who often have the greatest exposure and the least amount of protection.” Perera also published an article in Environmental Health Perspectives on our moral obligation to protect our most vulnerable population – children – from climate change.
As the lawsuits in Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington demonstrate, youth activists and climate change organizations are prepared to tackle this issue head-on, and in at least a few cases, the courts are prepared to listen. We can only hope that robust regulations will follow on the heels of legal victories, so that today’s children are the last generation of young people to have to sue for protection from climate change. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for generations to come are dependent on our ability to reduce our fossil fuel consumption and our emission of greenhouse gases – and as these lawsuits prove, we cannot wait any longer.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Did you hear that the Flint water crisis is over? Nothing could be further from the truth. President Obama’s attempt to prove the water’s safety by drinking it on national television left many Flint residents confused and angry. Right now, pregnant women and children under age six are still being warned not to drink the water. How safe is it? Many Flint residents are relying on bottled water to bathe, cook, and brush teeth. Flint’s old leaded pipes are a long way from being replaced. The chemicals being used to seal pipes are showing problems. Flint’s residents are rightly anxious about the safety of the water.
The early signs which concerned moms and dads noticed included hair loss, sudden skin rashes, abdominal pain. They knew something was wrong, but for many parents, learning that the child was lead poisoned was much worse than anything else they had imagined. The heartbreak continued as they found that their kids were now at high risk for ADHD, low IQ, among other long-term health effects. Here is one mother’s story:
‘I’m not taking a bath . . . it hurts my skin.’ The evening struggle begins again for a mom whose child refuses to bathe. The contaminated water was causing her young son’s rash. ‘I took him to the doctors. I was told to keep his skin clean and to bathe him every night. The doctor said he had contact dermatitis from something like laundry soap, bar soap, or something else he comes in contact with. I never thought water from my faucet could be hurting my baby.”
Oversight responsibility over city water is the local government’s job. Local government is required to report to the state, which is overseen by the federal EPA water division. One breakdown in oversight is bad, but a break down at every level means somebody or everybody is slacking on the job and does not care.
Sasha Khokha, a journalist from California National Public Radio has a different distressing story. After she heard about the water crisis in Flint, she decided to check her tap water. When she reviewed her water bill from the city of Fresno, she read the “consumer confidence report” for drinking water. Sasha read the footnote in small print: ‘123 Trichloropropane (1,2,3 TCP) has been detected in 29 wells in Fresno…. Some people who use water containing it over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer, based on studies in laboratory animals.’
Fearing for her two children, she decided to get her water tested for the presence of chemicals. The sample from Sasha’s kitchen tap showed 2.2 parts per trillion, three times the state’s public health goal for 1,2,3-TCP. Twenty-five years after California declared 1,2,3-TCP to be a carcinogen, drinking water regulators are only now planning to set a standard for drinking water.
And it’s not just Fresno. According to the State Water Resources Control Board, the chemical has been found in about a hundred public water systems across California, mostly in the Central Valley, but also in counties like Santa Cruz, Monterey, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.
We have do better as a country, every person deserves safe drinking water – it is a human right.
By Jacob Metz
Last week, President Obama became the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, one of only two sites directly targeted by nuclear warfare. He used the trip to promote his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, encouraging the global community to “have the courage to escape the logic of fear” and to eliminate nuclear stockpiles from military arsenals. We would do well to heed Obama’s call to work towards a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons. But a world free from nuclear weapons must also mean a world free from dangerous nuclear waste situated near our communities.
In 1942, the St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt Chemical Works became one of the main processors of uranium ore for the Manhattan Project, the government-sponsored project tasked with developing nuclear weaponry for use in World War II. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that Mallinckrodt Chemical Works played a large role in the production of weapons-grade uranium, from the end of World War II to the height of the Cold War in 1957. The heightened focus on the possibility of war combined with a rudimentary scientific understanding of the health effects of radioactivity meant that little attention was devoted to figuring out how to safely dispose of the radioactive waste.
After the 1950s, the radioactive waste changed hands several times around the St. Louis area before falling under the supervision of the Cotter Corporation, which illegally disposed of the waste in the West Lake Landfill. Though dumped nearly fifty years ago, the nuclear waste still remains in the West Lake Landfill today, posing a direct threat to the public health and local environment of nearby Bridgeton, Missouri.
Despite the consistent efforts of local activists like Dawn Chapman and Karen Nichols to call for the complete removal of the waste, the EPA has stalled and not used its full authority to properly and efficiently remediate the site through the Superfund law. The content of the West Lake Landfill is already strongly believed by residents to be linked to cases of cancer in the community, especially since a Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services report claims that the exact same waste in nearby Coldwater Creek was linked to statistically higher rates of cancer in surrounding zip codes.
Local Bridgeton residents want jurisdiction over the clean-up of the site to be transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency which has already successfully remediated other St. Louis sites affected by the same nuclear waste. Congress must pass S. 2306 to transfer authority of the clean-up to the Army Corps of Engineers and to protect the health of Bridgeton residents. As we contemplate the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must remember that nuclear weapons threaten the lives of civilians both through their use in war as well as through their domestic production.