NH #686: Reuters Investigation Blasts Govt. Agency Incompetence, Lies at N St. Louis Radioactive West Lake Landfill - Dawn Chapman

Dawn Chapman of Just Moms StL (l) and Nuclear Hotseat host Libbe HaLevy at
symposium on West Lake Landfill issues in North St. Louis, February 19, 2016.

Keystone Photo – activists Dawn Chapman and Kay Drey on-site at radioactively contaminated Coldwater Creek in N. St. Louis, MO. February 19, 2016.

This Week’s Featured Interview:

• Reuters news agency published a scathing report on August 8 blasting companies and government agencies responsible for some of America’s most toxic waste sites — and how they are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation. Focus was on the West Lake Landfill in North St. Louis and ongoing contamination from the WWII legacy radioactive waste that has caused rates of cancer, MS and auto-immune disease to skyrocket in the adjacent neighborhood.
  
  Specifically, it honed in on how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) presented reports riddled with distorted, obsolete data to “prove” – put that word in quotes – that there was nothing to worry about from the smouldering, radioactive Bridgeton waste dump in North St. Louis, Missouri.
  
  We talk with Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms StL, who has been fighting this landfill and pushing for clean-up and restitution for more than a decade. We spoke on Sunday, August 11, 2024.

Nuclear Hotseat’s Libbe HaLevy interviewing Dr. Helen Caldicott on-site at the West Lake Landfill in North St. Louis. February 19, 2016.

Links:

• Just Moms StL on Facebook
• Just Moms StL website
• Reuters story: How a US health agency became a shield for polluters

Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter:

It’s hard to compete with childless cat ladies and Olympic gold but there’s still plenty of race to run to stop nuclear folly.

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Seafood too contaminated with radionuclides from Fukushima to sell in Japan? Easy! Ship it to the U.S. for beaucoup bucks! Scallops with a side of cesium – mmmmmm!