Steve Allen and Eric Singsaas grew up hunting and fishing in August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area and swimming in quarries along the Missouri River in St. Charles County, never knowing they were playing near nuclear waste.
鈥淓verything we did,鈥� Allen said in an interview, 鈥渨e did together.鈥�
Allen said he and Singsaas even attended a tour of an old uranium plant nearby 鈥� put on by the federal government in 1991.
鈥淔or the most part, we trusted what the government told us,鈥� Allen said, 鈥渁nd surely, in our brain, if there was something bad there, (the government) wouldn鈥檛 allow us to be there.鈥�
Decades later, Singsaas woke up with a numb foot. Within a week, he found out he had three cancerous brain tumors.
Two years later, he died.
It鈥檚 unclear what confluence of factors may have caused , or whether exposure to radioactive contamination played any part. But testing results from sampling conducted by the Department of Energy show that, in the 1980s and 1990s, three lakes within the Busch conservation area 鈥� almost 7,000 acres of some of the busiest fishing lakes and hiking trails in the state 鈥� contained higher-than-natural levels of uranium and radioactivity.
Several of the uranium readings are much higher than the EPA maximum level for uranium in drinking water, which was .
Health experts say the levels would only pose a measurable threat if someone drank the lake water regularly.
But in a region where contamination from America鈥檚 nuclear age has been allowed to spread even when the federal government and private companies knew of the danger, and generations of residents watched loved ones suffer from rare cancers and autoimmune diseases, those assurances can ring hollow. After discovering contaminated water flowing from Burgermeister Spring into the lakes in the mid-1980s, , dismissing it as the 鈥渕ost drastic thing we could do鈥� and arguing that people would inevitably disregard any state-mandated prohibition on swimming in the lakes or eating fish.
And while the plant started processing radioactive material in the 1950s, federal records of uranium monitoring only date back to the 1980s. Neither the Department of Energy nor the Department of Defense has records from the 10 years the Weldon Spring plant processed uranium. The plant sat shuttered, and the groundwater wasn鈥檛 monitored for at least 10 years after that.
Denise DeGarmo, a political science professor who has researched and written about nuclear waste in the St. Louis region, said the government has never done sufficient testing to identify all of the contamination. She said the community鈥檚 trust in the federal government had eroded over decades of being ignored or brushed off.
鈥淭hey know when something鈥檚 wrong,鈥� DeGarmo said. 鈥淭hey know that when red water is showing up in a muddle somewhere, it shouldn鈥檛 be there. They know when their kids are getting sick.鈥�
A cast doubt on potential health impacts from Weldon Spring Chemical Plant, which manufactured TNT and DNT and later refined uranium for the federal government. Waste from the plant contaminated quarries by the Missouri River and made its way into the groundwater and, eventually, to the Busch conservation area.
State officials monitored the waters and tested fish in the Busch conservation area, which abuts property that held the Weldon Spring Chemical Plant.
But when the Department of Energy demolished the uranium plant and emptied the pits where radioactive waste was stored 鈥� and which had been exposed to wind and rain for decades 鈥� officials decided to simply monitor the contamination in groundwater and surface water until it naturally dissipated.
And while the federal government has known since at least the 1980s that surface water around the Weldon Spring uranium plant was contaminated, the Busch lakes and other publicly-accessible bodies of water nearby have no signs warning visitors of potential hazards.
Starting in the 1980s and continuing into the 2000s, state officials repeatedly said signs weren鈥檛 needed because the contamination wasn鈥檛 significant enough.
In addition to the conservation area, radioactive contamination showed up in the 1980s in about 150 private drinking water wells, though the state health department concluded the water was affected by 鈥渘aturally-occurring radioactive material.鈥�
Seventeen wells had radionuclide concentrations high enough to need to be routinely tested until the early 2000s, Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said in an email.
Almost 25 years later, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources told federal officials the contamination in . The department noted in a 2021 letter to the U.S. Department of Energy that contamination levels in some monitoring wells near where radioactive waste was stored at the site aren鈥檛 decreasing.
鈥淭he department has expressed concerns with the long-term monitoring and surveillance since the record of decision鈥n 2004,鈥� Connie Patterson, a spokeswoman for the department of natural resources, said in an email. The department doesn鈥檛 believe, however, that the Busch lakes pose a human health threat.
Through a spokesperson, the Department of Energy insists the site is now safe, and following the state鈥檚 2021 concerns, the federal agency created a working group to identify locations for additional monitoring wells and evaluate solutions for further decontamination.
Decades of contamination聽
St. Louis played a pivotal role in , the name given to the effort to develop the first atomic bomb during World War II.
Uranium processed by workers at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in downtown St. Louis was used in the first sustained nuclear chain reaction in Chicago, a key breakthrough in research for the bomb.
But for decades after the war, radioactive waste from the project was improperly transported and stored, causing contamination that remains in St. Louis and St. Charles counties today.
Waste from Mallinckrodt was stored at the St. Louis airport following the war in open piles and deteriorating barrels. Contamination seeped into , which runs through busy suburbs in St. Louis County, and polluted its waters for miles.
In the 1960s, the waste was sold and transported to Hazelwood for a private company to extract valuable metals. At that site, too, radioactive waste was able to erode into Coldwater Creek.
Once all of the valuable materials had been processed and moved offsite, the rest was scooped up with contaminated soil and dumped into the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, where it remains today.
After World War II, Mallinckrodt started processing uranium in Weldon Spring for the federal government鈥檚 Cold War-era nuclear program.
Waste from the plant was stored in open pits, and contaminated material from World War II was dumped in a quarry on the Missouri River.
Rainwater carried radioactive material from the disposal ponds, through streams and groundwater, more than a mile away into August A Busch Memorial Conservation Area, where uranium contaminated streamways and three fishing lakes.
Kim Lindsey remembers passing the old buildings of the shuttered chemical plant in the 1990s when her Army Reserves unit trained near the Weldon Spring site. She didn鈥檛 go in them, but she often passed containment domes that held radioactive waste.
鈥淭hey said that it had been cleaned up already, even though there were little signs all over saying that the place was radioactive,鈥� Lindsey said.
Lindsey said her unit once found an old train car full of 55-gallon drums in the woods near the site. They weren鈥檛 sure what was in them.
It wasn鈥檛 until years later that Lindsey learned about the radioactive waste around St. Louis and its connection to the Manhattan Project. She said it was 鈥渓ousy鈥� her unit wasn鈥檛 made aware of what was around them.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think most of us knew,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ecause we would joke about, 鈥榃ell yeah, if we step on this side of the barbed wire, we鈥檒l be able to light our way home when we鈥檙e old.鈥� You know, it was funny.鈥�
She added: 鈥淲ell, it鈥檚 funny in your 20s when you have no clue.鈥�
Now 56, Lindsey said she sees a hematologist and an oncologist regularly, though the doctors don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 wrong. Her white and red blood cells take turns spiking and falling.
When she was training at Weldon Spring, Lindsey struggled with uterine fibroids and ovarian cysts. She had a total hysterectomy about 10 years ago because she was at risk of uterine cancer, she said.
鈥淲hen I was younger, it didn鈥檛 even bother me,鈥� Lindsey said of the radioactive waste around her, 鈥渂ut I just keep thinking about how many other people that were out there training with me鈥re there people that are sick?鈥�
Uranium in public lakes聽
Sampling from the 1980s and 鈥�90s show uranium levels in the lakes and springs around the Mallinckrodt site and within Busch often exceeded what is now the Environmental Protection Agency鈥檚 limit for drinking water: 30 micrograms per liter.
At that time, the EPA didn鈥檛 have a limit for uranium alone, though it had standards for radioactivity.
Testing conducted by the Department of Energy in 1989 showed uranium levels in Busch Lake No. 34 were as high as 57.6 micrograms per liter, almost twice the modern limit for drinking water. At Busch Lake No. 36, uranium levels reached almost 80 micrograms per liter in 1987. They fluctuated over the years but hit almost 80 again in 1996.
Uranium levels were typically lowest in Busch Lake No. 35. Except for one extraordinarily high reading the department determined was an outlier, they never rose above the modern EPA drinking water standard once testing commenced.
Burgermeister Spring, named after the family that lived there before World War II, feeds into the Busch conservation area and was found to have concentrations of uranium as high as 250 micrograms per liter, almost nine times the modern EPA drinking water limit, according to a 1987 report by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Uranium concentrations in Burgermeister have fallen over the years, but routinely exceeded 30 micrograms well into the 2010s. It repeatedly exceeded 100 micrograms until the early 2000s. Detections over 150 micrograms per liter would trigger contingency efforts.
A found the contamination at that time would not pose a risk for recreational visitors. The EPA鈥檚 limit of 30 micrograms per liter for drinking water is based on someone drinking two liters of water a day for decades.
Even then, Kathy Higley, a distinguished professor at Oregon State University who teaches courses on radiochemistry and dosimetry, said consuming water every day at the EPA limit of 30 micrograms per liter would only result in a dose of 4 millirem per year. The average annual dose of radiation from everyday sources 鈥� such cosmic radiation, X-ray machines and traveling by airplane 鈥� is 620.
That 4 millirems is 鈥渒ind of in the noise,鈥� she said.
鈥淎t really, really low doses鈥e can鈥檛 measure observable risks of cancer because there鈥檚 such a high natural background,鈥� Higley said.
Finding out about the cleanup at Weldon Spring years later made Dwain Jansen wonder if he ate contaminated fish when his family frequented the Busch conservation area in the 1980s. He said his family caught about 200 pounds of fish every year, primarily at Lake No. 34.
His wife鈥檚 family fished there a lot, too. Jansen鈥檚 wife, Amber, died from complications related to cancer in 2011 at the age of 42.
鈥淚t鈥檚 too young for someone to die,鈥� Jansen said. 鈥淐an I point this toward Weldon Spring or the fish or well water? No, I have no definitive answer.鈥�
Public awareness and cleanup
For decades, there have been no signs warning visitors the Busch lakes contained uranium.
Starting in the 1980s, the federal Department of Energy and the Missouri Department of Conservation simply said that they weren鈥檛 needed. John Vogel, who managed the Busch conservation area for the conservation department, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2003 the department didn鈥檛 want to put up signs and create a panic.
By then, uranium concentrations in the lakes had fallen compared to the high readings of the 1980s and 1990s. Asked if the department would make the same decision today, conservation department spokesman Dan Zarlenga said any agency communication about human health would be informed by the department鈥檚 state and federal partners, including the state health and natural resources departments and the EPA, which 鈥渉ave the expertise to make these determinations.鈥�
When officials began studying the site and preparing to remediate it, they looked into strategies to decontaminate the groundwater, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement.
But both 鈥渃onventional and innovative techniques for active remediation were ineffective due to the site鈥檚 complex hydrogeological features,鈥� EPA spokesperson Kellen Ashford said in an email.
Zarlenga said the department was planning to collect fish from the Busch lakes this fall to test for uranium and other heavy metals.
What remains unclear is how dangerous the waters in Busch conservation area were in the years during 鈥� and just after 鈥� Mallinckrodt鈥檚 uranium operations in Weldon Spring.
Data provided by the Department of Energy show sampling started in 1987. But the department鈥檚 remedial investigation, released in 1992, references studies from the late 1970s and mid-1980s.
In an email, a Department of Energy spokesperson said the first samples the department performed were released in a report in 1986. It took control of the site from the Department of the Army in 1985.
The report says records 鈥渙f routine environmental monitoring by (the Army) during previous years are unavailable.鈥�
Asked about monitoring data, the Department of Defense referred questions back to the Department of Energy, saying it was not aware of any uranium monitoring by the federal government before 1985.
