The contaminated soil near Jana Elementary School is not a risk to human health unless inhaled or eaten, according to the federal agency charged with cleanup, and digging in the dirt by a child or pet would not create a significant risk.
“There is not a sufficient volume of the material to equate to enough daily ingestions to cause health concerns,” said John Paul Rebello, who works in public affairs with the St. Louis District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). “The contamination that requires remediation on Jana School property is subsurface and low-level radiologically speaking.”
Rebello made the comments in reaction to criticism from the Missouri Coalition on the Environment (MCE), which includes allegations that the cleanup is occurring too slowly.
“While a lot of work remains, a large amount of work has been accomplished,” he said in defense of the operation. “Finding the radiological contamination within and adjacent to CWC is a large and complex project that will certainly take time to complete in full.”
Cleanup at the elementary school site is projected to be completed by the summer of 2023 under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), which is funded by Congress annually.
“Regardless of extra manpower, funding, or both there are certain limitations to the overall ability of the FUSRAP,” Rebello told the St. Louis Record. “Overall numbers of technically specialized experts, rail capacities, and landfill capacities are a few examples of limiting factors.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, MCE wants the federal government to provide health programs, screening, and treatment for St. Louis residents who have allegedly been exposed to contamination from nuclear weapons that were manufactured near Coldwater Creek during the time of World War 2.
However, providing medical care is not the role of the Army Corps of Engineers or the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, according to Rebello.
“The USACE FUSRAP mission is to protect public health and the environment by removing contamination from designated sites,” he said. “USACE FUSRAP does not include, nor is it funded or authorized to provide, medical care for the public.”
Instead, Rebello recommends residents who are concerned about exposure contact their physician or the St. Louis County Health Department.
“Remediating the creek is complicated because of the different issues to take into consideration like maintaining the flow of water, getting equipment and people into the creek in areas of extremely steep banks, creek bank stabilization, and permits,” he said.
Currently, the USACE is in the process of developing a remediation design/work plan document that follows the full Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) process, which will then be reviewed by regulators before becoming final.
"Employees involved in the design effort include engineers, geologists, industrial hygienists, GIS specialists, real estate specialists, and health physicists," Rebello added. "The actual remediation includes those same professionals, along with construction managers and workers, radiation technicians, laboratory scientists, laborers, operators, surveyors, sample coordinators, disposal specialists, and regulatory specialists."