[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION, HEALTH: West Lake Landfill, Bridgeton, MO - "How a US health agency became a shield for polluters"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

How a US health agency became a shield for polluters
Companies and others responsible for some of America's most toxic waste sites are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation, a Reuters investigation found. A Missouri neighborhood's tale.

By JAIMI DOWDELL, M.B. PELL, BENJAMIN LESSER, MICHELLE CONLIN, PHOEBE QUINTON and WAYLON CUNNINGHAM
Reuters
August 7, 2024

When they bought their homes in the Spanish Village neighborhood northwest of St. Louis, many residents had no idea a radioactive landfill sat less than a mile away.

Health conditions mounted over the years, suggesting something wasn’t right.

…

Reuters reporters tracked down current or former residents of half of the neighborhood’s 92 homes. At least 33 of those people have been diagnosed since the 1980s with types of cancer that have been linked to radiation.

…

In refuting neighbors’ complaints, Republic tapped an unlikely ally that U.S. corporations have leaned on for decades: a federal health agency set up to protect people from environmental hazards just like the West Lake dump.

A 2015 report by that small bureaucracy, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), did not identify any radioactive material outside the landfill. It declared that the landfill posed no health risk to the community and that radioactive gas would not leave the site. Its assessment contradicted findings from two sets of scientists: some hired by Missouri’s Attorney General and others from an environmental consulting firm working with residents. Republic still uses the ATSDR report to argue for a less expensive cleanup of the contamination, despite mounting evidence that the agency’s assessment was wrong.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-pollution-atsdr-landfill/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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