WASHINGTON – Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley continues his push to fund victims of radioactive contamination in the St. Louis region, joining several lawmakers in a rally outside the nation’s capitol on Wednesday.
Hawley is working on legislation to fund victims who suffered an autoimmune virus, a genetic disorder or cancer because of radioactive contamination in the St. Louis area.
Hawley and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico) want to amend the National Defense Authorization Act to expand coverage under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
Both offered words about the government’s actions in Missouri and New Mexico during and following the development of the atomic bomb.
“If the government is going to expose its own citizens to radioactive material, radioactive waste, radioactive contamination for decades, the government ought to pay the bills of the men and women who’ve gotten sick because of it,” said Hawley. “They ought to pay for the survivor benefits of those who have been lost.”
A new report surfaced earlier this year suggesting that the federal government downplayed and failed to fully investigate the risks of nuclear waste contamination that stemmed from the Manhattan Project in St. Louis County.
The issue was also brought to national attention last year when environmental investigation consultants pointed out radioactive contamination at Jana Elementary School in north county. There are also prolonged concerns about the West Lake landfill in Bridgeton, Coldwater Creek through multiple municipalities, and a former uranium plant site in Weldon Spring.
“In the state of Missouri, in the greater St. Louis region, dating all the way back to the Manhattan Project, the government used the city of St. Louis as a uranium processing facility, as a major site, and when that was over, what did it do? Did it take care of the waste? No. It allowed it to seep into the groundwater. It allowed it to get into Cold Water Creek. It allowed it to get into the soil, and generations of Missourians, children, were poisoned because of the government’s negligence.”
As for New Mexico’s ties, the Manhattan Project’s Trinity Test Site has Luján concerned about long-term impacts.
“Everyone that has lived downwind of where nuclear testing took place, including in New Mexico where the Trinity Test Site is, the first place where a bomb was tested on American soil, families are here, but they were not warned,” said Luján.
Hawley also pressed U.S. President Joe Biden to take action earlier this year, calling on him to declare a federal emergency over the radioactive contamination, though that was never authorized.
“It’s time for their voices to be heard,” Hawley said of victims. “Because for decades their voices have been ignored.”