Local News
Florissant Homes Built on Coldwater Creek May Sit on Radioactive Contamination

[ad_1]
Federal officials are investigating whether residents of a small subdivision in the St. Louis suburbs are living on top of contamination dating back to World War II after finding radioactive material in their backyards.
The Cades Cove subdivision, a small enclave in Florissant, was built on top of where Coldwater Creek once meandered. The creek, which runs through several St. Louis suburbs and into the Missouri River, was contaminated decades ago by waste left over from the development of the world’s first atomic bomb.
Now, 78 years after the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, waste from their development lingers in Cades Cove residents’ backyards. And federal officials are drilling through their basement floors to determine whether it’s under their homes.
“There are homes built on top of the Manhattan Project in St. Louis,” said Dawn Chapman, a co-founder of Just Moms STL, an advocacy group for affected communities, “and there are residents who have been living in those homes on top of this for decades.”
Chapman was speaking on a press conference call about legislation that would compensate St. Louis-area residents who have developed illnesses because of exposure to radioactive waste.
“This is not a 50-year-old problem,” Chapman said. “This is a today problem.” click to enlarge ZACHARY LINHARES The Cades Cove subdivision was built where Coldwater Creek once meandered and its backyards abut the creekbed today.
Following the conference call and media inquiries on Monday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for cleaning up Coldwater Creek and surrounding properties, announced the sampling efforts in a news release. The agency said it was planning a public meeting.
Phil Moser, a program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said in an interview with The Independent that the agency, which is responsible for cleaning up Coldwater Creek, discovered radioactive contamination in several backyards in Cades Cove, leading officials to sample under residents’ foundations.
Moser said it’s the first time since the agency began sampling efforts — meant to inform its cleanup plan — that it has needed to go inside residents’ homes to collect samples. He called the neighborhood an “outlier” for its contamination in residents’ yards.
Contamination in Cades Cove, Moser said, has been found deep underground because the creek meander was filled in with dirt when the neighborhood was built more than 30 years ago. He said several yards will need to be remediated.
It’s less clear what will happen if contamination is discovered under residents’ homes. Moser said the Army Corps is going to ensure it gets all the contamination. Asked if homes may need to be demolished or whether residents might have to move, Moser said he couldn’t speak about hypotheticals.
“We’re not taking anything off the table as far as what we would eventually have to do,” he said.
He said “no matter what” the agency will remove all the contamination.
In an email to activists about the sampling and in an interview with The Independent, Moser said the agency had been in contact with Cades Cove residents and the local homeowners’ association.
“As expected, this is a difficult time for (residents) to navigate and we are striving (to) not make it worse with too much outside attention,” Moser said in an email to activists. The Corps’ St. Louis spokesman, Jeremy Idleman, said the same in an emailed statement.
Parts of St. Louis and surrounding counties have been contaminated for decades by waste generated during the Manhattan Project, the name given to the effort to build the world’s first atomic bomb. Uranium refined in downtown St. Louis was used in the first sustained nuclear reaction in Chicago, a key breakthrough in the bomb’s creation.
After the war, waste generated from uranium processing was trucked to St. Louis County and dumped, uncovered, at the airport, right next to Coldwater Creek. Wind and rain spread the waste, polluting the creek for miles. Over the ensuing decades, tons of waste were moved around St. Louis and St. Charles counties, polluting numerous sites.
Radioactive contamination remains at sites around the St. Louis metro today, and the cleanup of Coldwater Creek and surrounding properties is expected to take until 2038.
Even at the time the homes in Cades Cove were built, the federal government had known for years that radioactive waste stored nearby had polluted Coldwater Creek. An investigation published last summer by The Missouri Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press revealed that federal officials and the company that refined uranium for the Manhattan Project knew the waste posed a risk to St. Louis residents for years before acknowledging it to the public.
“I’m angry,” said Karen Nickel, Chapman’s fellow co-founder, who visited the neighborhood Monday. “I’m angry. I’m frustrated, disappointed, and I feel very, very bad for the people that are living in those homes, living in that subdivision.”
Nickel said Just Moms hopes to share resources and information with Cades Cove residents and ensure those outside the neighborhood know what is being found. She criticized the Army Corps for not making the findings public more quickly.
“Stop using this excuse,” Nickel said. “…the rest of this community has the right to know.”
The revelation of the Cades Cove contamination comes at a time when St. Louis’ radioactive contamination is in the spotlight.
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote this week on legislation that would expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to residents of Missouri sickened by radioactive waste and several western states where atomic bomb testing exposed huge swaths of the nation to airborne radioactivity.
And Chapman is attending President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on Thursday as U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley’s guest.
This story was first published by the Missouri Independent. The Riverfront Times’ Zach Linhares contributed to this report.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

[ad_1]
A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.
Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.
The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.
The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.
This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.
As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

[ad_1]
Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.
“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”
He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”
The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”
Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”
The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.
Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”
In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.
“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”
Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”
Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.
“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.
Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)
One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.
Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.
“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

[ad_1]
The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.
The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.
The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.
The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.
To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/
“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
-
Politics11 months ago
Prenzler ‘reconsidered’ campaign donors, accepts vendor funds
-
Business2 years ago
Fields Foods to open new grocery in Pagedale in March
-
Board Bills2 years ago
2022-2023 Board Bill 168 — City’s Capital Fund
-
Business2 years ago
We Live Here Auténtico! | The Hispanic Chamber | Community and Connection Central
-
Entertainment2 years ago
St.Louis Man Sounds Just Like Whitley Hewsten, Plans on Performing At The Shayfitz Arena.
-
Board Bills6 months ago
2024-2025 Board Bill 80 — Prohibiting Street Takeovers
-
Board Bills2 years ago
2022-2023 Board Bill 189 — Public Works and Improvement Program at the Airport
-
Local News2 years ago
VIDEO: St. Louis Visitor Has Meltdown on TikTok Over Gunshots