News

By Sylvester Brown

Hundreds of thousands of St. Louis County residents may now qualify for tax-free federal payments worth up to $50,000, but many are not applying, some saying they don’t trust the program or the people promoting it.

That mistrust, advocates say, is keeping families from money that could help pay medical bills or bring relief after decades of illness linked to radioactive waste contamination.

“I get a lot of emails from people who say, ‘My brother doesn’t think this is real, he thinks it’s a scam,’” Karen Nickel, co-founder of Just Moms STL, told KSDK-TV. “There are a lot of people who don’t want to send their documents because they don’t trust the federal government.”

The assistance comes through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a federal program created to help people harmed by the nation’s early nuclear weapons work. Congress extended and expanded the program last year, adding 21 Missouri ZIP codes after years of pressure from local families who argued the St. Louis area had long been overlooked.

Federal data shows $8.57 million in Missouri claims have already been approved, yet less than 1% of eligible residents have applied. County officials estimate as many as 300,000 people could qualify, but only about 2,000 have submitted applications so far.

RECA provides one-time, tax-free payments to people who lived, worked or went to school in certain areas during the early years of the Manhattan Project — the top-secret government effort to develop the first nuclear weapons — and later developed a covered illness. Survivors of family members who died from one of those illnesses may also qualify for a smaller payment.

The St. Louis region’s connection to RECA traces back to Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, which processed uranium for the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission. The original processing facility was just north of downtown St. Louis, but the radioactive waste it generated was later dumped, mishandled or allowed to migrate into waterways and neighborhoods across St. Louis County.

EPA investigations have found that federal agencies and contractors were aware of contamination problems for decades. They ignored warnings about leaking waste, health risks and unsafe landfill practices.

One of the most visible sites is Coldwater Creek in Florissant, listed by the EPA in 1981 as “one of the most polluted waterways” in the country. Generations of children raised along the creek have faced rare cancers, autoimmune disorders and other illnesses. Cleanup continues today.

Former state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who is running for a St. Louis County Council seat, has spent more than a decade researching contamination sites and hosting community meetings. At dozens of meetings in her former senate district, she said she has heard emotional stories of illegal dumping, rare cancers and families who lost loved ones to illnesses they believed were tied to radioactive waste. She said mistrust remains the biggest obstacle to getting residents to apply for compensation.

“I talked about this story before it was sexy, before it was popular, when Josh Hawley (as state attorney general) kept ignoring us,” she said.

Chappelle-Nadal said mistrust is particularly deep in neighborhoods where generations of families believe they were never warned about the dangers. She acknowledges that Hawley, now a U.S. senator, did help expand the program last year, but said many residents still do not view him as a credible messenger.

She also worries that some majority-Black neighborhoods with long histories of illness were not included in the latest expansion.

“The Coldwater Creek watershed is just one of many contaminated watersheds,” she said. “There are people who live in historically Black communities where 80% or more either got cancer or died from radioactive waste-related cancers.

“Then they bought homes built after World War II, in Black Jack, Berkeley or Hazelwood and different places throughout St. Louis County that are still contaminated to this day.”

She believes the expansion offers residents a chance to finally receive support — but only if they know they’re eligible. Many people still don’t know their neighborhood is included or don’t believe their illness, or a family member’s illness, could be connected to radioactive waste.

To apply, residents must submit a claim through the U.S. Department of Justice. A toll-free hotline, 800-729-7327, is available to answer questions, and local groups such as Just Moms STL can help people understand whether they qualify.

Before people seek compensation, she said, they need to know they were exposed.

“It’s great that we have the (RECA) setup,” she said. “It’s wonderful, but getting people from point A to point Z will take a lot more work.”

Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.