Cancer-causing radium detected in US city's groundwater due to landfill teeming with nuclear waste from WWII-era atomic bomb efforts

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A county in Missouri has been deemed a 'cancer cluster' after officials unearthed discarded World War II-era radium used in America's atomic bomb efforts.

For decades, residents of St. Louis County have raised concerns about a spike in cancer diagnosis - and specifically those living just outside the West Lake Landfill.

The landfill has held thousands of tons of radioactive waste and contaminated soil since 1973 when drums containing the chemicals were illegally dumbed by a contractor for the Cotter Corporation.

Crews cleaning up radioactive residue at West Lake Landfill recently discovered the toxins have contaminated nearby groundwater in Bridgeton.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels exceed limits for drinking water and plans to investigate whether it's leaked into nearby wells or it the toxins could reach the Missouri River.

Crews who have been working to clean up the West Lake Landfill - where radioactive waste was illegally dumped from the atomic bomb - found radium contamination at the edge of the site. Coldwater Creek has also been contaminated with toxic waste

The hazardous chemicals filter into the soil through precipitation or surface run-off and moves into groundwater systems.

In the case of radium, this chemical has been linked to the increase of lung and bone cancer - two types that have seen a spike in the region.

The entire 40 tons of uranium oxide that was used to make the atomic bomb was manufactured at the Mallinckrodt industrial site in downtown St. Louis.

Mallinckrodt Chemical Works was commissioned to refine uranium at its plant, producing 200 million pounds for the Manhattan Project that created America's two atomic bombs.

And the facility continued its work to produce pure uranium during the Cold War.

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But in 1973, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works took advantage of the free disposal in the West Lake Landfill and commissioned Cotter Corporation to do it, according to Vanderbilt University.

Testing of the landfill in the 1980s showed high levels of radium, a naturally occurring radioactive metal.

Since then, residents have claimed there has been a spike in cancers.

In 2010, a fire broke out underground about 1,000 feet from the West Lake Landfill that is still burning today, which sent toxic fumes flowing through the region.

The EPA claimed in 2015 that there is 'no imminent threat' from the fire, but Missouri consultants told NPR that the fire could reach West Lake within a few months.

'The number of people that had not had issues before that suddenly, that was happening, you know, they were having lung issues, and then it was cardiac,' resident Dawn Chapman told NBC in 2022.

Generations of families who moved to St. Louis County since the end of WWII have faced rare cancers and autoimmune disorders that are believed to come from playing in nearby creeks, which have shown radiation levels exceeding drinking water limits.

Steel drums containing radioactive waste were dumped near Coldwater Creek in the mid-1970s

The increased exposure to high levels of radium over many years can result in bone and lung cancer, anemia, cataracts and reduced bone growth, which many residents are still suffering from.

Rhonda Branneky, a Bridgeton resident, said her two children had suffered from cancer after 'radioactive material [was] illegally dumped across from [her] family home.'

She was forced to leave with her two kids who had already suffered from cancers linked to the 'leftover mess from the Manhattan Project.' 

From 2015 to 2019, St Louis County had an age-adjusted lung cancer mortality rate of 38.5 per 100,000 people, which was higher than the national rate but lower than Missouri's.

Clean-up of the landfill began in March of this year when crews uncovered the toxins - images of the landfill show rusted, broken drums littering the landscape.

The EPA did not confirm how much radium was detected - the maximum level is 5 picocuries per liter - and the spokesperson said 'no conclusions have been made about the source(s) of the radium in off-site groundwater because data collection is ongoing.'

'Field activities associated with the Remedial Investigation began in 2020 and are ongoing,' the EPA spokesperson added.

'Once completed, information from the well network will be evaluated and conclusions about the nature and extent of groundwater impacts, including the possible source(s), will be provided in the Remedial Investigation Report.'

About 14 miles from the landfill sits Coldwater Creek, which the federal government confirmed in 2018 was causing cancer in the area - it was labeled as one of the most polluted waterways in 1981.

Mary Oscko had lived in St. Louis County her entire life and grew up spending time at St. Cin Park which sits along Coldwater Creek and contained low-dose radioactive soil.

She was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2013 despite never being a smoker and succumbed to the disease last year.

Her diagnosis was linked to radioactive waste disposal which has seen a rise in cases over the past several decades.

Generations of families played in Coldwater Creek which has resulted in thousands of people developing life-threatening cancers and other illnesses Pictured: A 1980s picture of a boy using a rope swing to jump into Coldwater Creek

Kim Visintine grew up playing at Coldwater Creek, and when she gave birth to her son Zach, doctors found he had a rare radiation-linked brain tumor and the infant underwent his first brain surgery at one week old and started chemo two weeks later.

Zach had multiple brain surgeries before he passed away at just six years old.

Julie Henneseey Britt, who also grew up playing at the creek, told NBC that her daughter passed away from a rare malignant tumor called Glioblastoma Multiforme, while she was diagnosed with breast cancer and her mom died from lung cancer.

It's unknown how many people have been diagnosed with and died from major illnesses related to radioactive waste in the area to date, but a 2013 report by St. Louis Magazine revealed at the time that 7,200 residents had been affected.

The EPA is now adding groundwater monitoring wells between the West Lake Landfill and the Missouri River to determine if radioactive contamination is spreading from the site.

'Radium in the groundwater is not impacting the community due to the availability of public water supply in the area,' an EPA spokesperson told DailyMail.com.

'The Remedial Investigation will include a risk assessment evaluating the potential for human exposure from radium in the groundwater.

'Again, this report will also evaluate and discuss the possible the source(s) of radium in the groundwater.'

Groundwater wells were expected to be fully installed by August 2022, 'but the detections in offsite locations required a significant expansion of the network in order to delineate exactly where the impacts are found,' Snehal Bhagat, the Remedial Project Manager at West Lake said at a December press briefing.

'So a lot more wells were put in. We're still putting them in as we chase the edges of the impacts.'

The West Lake Landfill is just one of several sites in St. Louis County that have been contaminated by decades-old nuclear waste.

In the wake of World War II, the radioactive waste created from refining uranium for the atomic bomb was moved to the local airport where it remained until it was sold in 1973.

At the time, there weren't any federal laws regulating hazardous waste disposal, and an estimated 133,007 tons of radioactive refuse was dumped at the site.

Some were left in barrels that eventually rusted, while others were buried under soil and some were simply left in uncontained piles.

Keeping the waste at the airport posed a major problem for the surrounding area because the nearby Coldwater Creek could flood, spreading the radioactive waste.

When it was removed, the massive amounts of radioactive waste were taken to Coldwater Creek to extract valuable metals and the remaining waste was illegally dumped at the West Lake Landfill.

However, the area had already been contaminated for years as the material often spilled off trucks and was dumped on the ground next to Coldwater Creek, contaminating the water for miles.

Coldwater Creek (pictured) is labeled as one of the most polluted waterways in the US. It is connected to the Missouri River

These reports come as records revealed the government downplayed the risks attached to the radioactive waste, calling them 'slight,' 'minimal' or 'low-level' and one engineering consultant incorrectly claimed in a 1970s report that that human contact with Coldwater Creek was 'rare,' the Missouri Independent reported.

An internal memo from the company that was used to develop the atomic bomb, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, showed that workers were concerned the chemicals could leak into the creek, according to the Missouri Independent.

The health hazard to workers handling the K-65 material, especially in broken drums, is much more serious and immediate than the possible hazard of stream pollution,' the memo said.

'As recently as last year, we got a new cache of documents that showed the full extent of the government's knowledge and what the government knew years ago — 30, 40, 50 years ago — that they had poisoned the creek, that their landfill that they dumped the waste into was going to cause huge problems, environmental problems and health problems. And they lied about it,' Sen. Josh Hawley, (R-Missouri) told Fox News.

'For years, the people of St. Louis were told, 'Don't worry. There's no significant radiation.' Or they were told, 'Hey, we've cleaned it all up.' In fact, those things were not true.'