Midwest
Officials knew Manhattan Project chemicals disposed improperly at Missouri sites, documents reveal
Several moms in suburban St. Louis have been working to get toxic sites in the area cleaned up, a major undertaking to fix widespread contamination that some government officials apparently covered up for decades.
“This was the best kept secret of St. Louis. The Manhattan Project wasn’t well known here, and it’s still a pretty good secret here,” Just Moms STL co-founder Karen Nickel said.
Nickel formed her group alongside her neighbor, Dawn Chapman, in 2013.
“Over the years, we had heard bits and pieces of the story and what we thought was the story,” Nickel said.
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The two moms spent several years going through thousands of documents that revealed those in charge of disposing of toxic waste in Missouri likely knew that crew had mishandled those chemicals.
“Right away, we were going, ‘Oh my God. This is so different than what we thought,”’ Chapman said.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said, over time, more details about the Manhattan Project in St. Louis came to light.
“As early as the 1960s, you had the public beginning to get some sense of it. But really, it wasn’t until the ‘80s and the ’90s that the full scope of this began to come into view,” Hawley 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.”
Coldwater Creek in St. Louis, an area where children and family visit, apparently was contaminated by toxic chemicals left behind by the Manhattan Project. The creek is now being sampled for radioactive material by the Army Corps of Engineers. (Army Corps of Engineers/Kay Drey Mallinckrodt Collection)
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Hawley is pushing to expand and extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which will expire this year. The legislation would make it so people who may have been sickened by chemicals in St. Louis and other areas could receive compensation from the government.
“We’ve come to find that St. Louis was a uranium processing site. So was Kentucky. So was Tennessee, that the extent of the testing that was done in the West was far greater than we knew,” Hawley said.
The documents included internal memos from Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, a company hired by the U.S. government to process chemicals for nuclear weapons. The cache also included testing and sampling from government agencies as well as warnings that sites exposed to those chemicals may not have been safe.
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“The evidence was there, the facts were there, and it told the story from beginning to end,” Nickel said.
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis worked to process uranium that would eventually help create the first sustained nuclear chain reaction. After the plant shut down, the company worked to dispose of the chemicals. An internal memo from 1949 revealed workers discussed health and safety concerns that came with where they stored the waste.
“Point No. 2 concerns the problem of the disintegrating K-65 drums at the airport,” the memo stated. “This is recognized as a severe problem.”
Federal officials first stored the waste at a site near St. Louis Airport. The location was near a creek that stretched 14 miles through North St. Louis County. The barrels were left out in the open and exposed to the elements.
“Right away, you could see that the government knew how dangerous this waste was,” Chapman said.
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Barrels of waste remained out in the open in Missouri after the shutdown of a chemical plant tied to the Manhattan Project. (Kay Drey Mallinckrodt Collection)
The internal memo from Mallinckrodt detailed concerns among workers that the chemicals could have leaked into the creek.”
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,” it said.
“They were so toxic that they were told, ‘Do not touch those. Those are too dangerous,’” Nickel said.
High water and flooding have been additional yearly concerns along Coldwater Creek.
“Of course, they wouldn’t put dangerous waste next to a creek that floods,” Chapman said. “They knew it was probably leaking into the creek, but they didn’t know how much.”
Army Corps of Engineers officials said because of the flooding throughout decades, their cleanup job today has been complex.
Flooding and high waters occur annually along the potentially contaminated Coldwater Creek of St. Louis. (Karen Nickel )
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“Wind and rain, and also flooding events, took some of those contaminants, and they were carried down the stream in the sediment and then deposited during flooding events and also just during the normal flow,” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District Program Manager Phil Moser said. “This is all historical contamination from decades ago, and that’s why it’s so difficult today finding this contamination.”
The Army Corps of Engineers has been sampling for radioactive material all along Coldwater Creek, some of which dated to before the St. Louis population boom.
“This was before homes were built. And lo and behold, in the late ‘50s and ’60s, homes were being built on top of this,” Nickel said.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, crews moved the waste to a different location near the airport and again left it out in the open.
“The controls back in the day were surely not what they are now. That’s why we’re in the current situation,” Moser said.
Crews stored the Manhattan Project chemicals at multiple sites around St. Louis. (Fox News)
Advocates and lawmakers, including Hawley, said the cleanup could move faster.
“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,” Hawley said.
“It was taking years to do testing and really get the scope and magnitude of how contaminated North County is,” Chapman said.
Testing from almost 50 years ago found possible contamination in parts of the creek. A 1977 report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee detailed samples from Coldwater Creek. Testing in drainage ditches, which carried run-off water into the creek, showed average radiation levels were almost five times higher than usual.
“We haven’t seen that level at these sites, since I’ve been here for sure,” Moser said.
In the 1970s, workers moved the waste once again, this time to West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Missouri.
“It is not possible in this United States of America to purchase a home next to a site that has Manhattan Project radioactive waste just sitting up for decades,” Chapman said.
Chadman, Nickel and thousands of others eventually would call neighborhoods near the West Lake Landfill home.
“The time to act is now. This should have been done 50 years ago, but it hasn’t been. So, now it’s time to do it,” Hawley said.
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DICKINSON — The end of January marks a critical time for teams across Southwest North Dakota. Wins are starting to become premium value, and standings are starting to take shape across all sports.
South Heart @ Hettinger-Scranton — Boys Basketball — Friday, Jan. 30
The Eagles are in the middle of the pack in the District 7 standings, sitting at fifth in the conference with a 1-1 record. South Heart is coming into Friday’s contest winning its last two outings, earning its first District 7 win over New England, 69-49, and then a tight non-conference win over Trenton, 67-58.
The game against New England was a back-and-forth first half, but the Eagles took control in the final 16 minutes, outscoring the Tigers 44-24. Garett Bargmann put up 29 points, which led all players on the floor.
The Nighthawks are heading into Friday’s game dropping their last two games, with the most recent being a close 59-56 loss to Divide County. Hettinger-Scranton led at half time, 25-23, but couldn’t pull away with a win. Gavin Parnow and Aidyn Fisher had strong performances in the game, with 19 and 18 points respectively.
Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. MST at Scranton High School.
Trinity @ Killdeer — Girls Basketball — Friday, Jan. 30
Jacob Cheris / The Dickinson Press
The Titans and Cowboys have played some really close games in the past. But the first meeting between the two clubs was a
lopsided affair that saw the Titans escape with a 55-36
win at the Knights of Columbus Activities Center.
Now the scene will shift to Killdeer in the final contest of the season-set. The Titans have been in some extremely tight games recently and have come out on both sides of the table. Trinity narrowly defeated Shiloh Christian, 46-44, to improve to 6-2 in Region 4 play and 8-6 overall.
The Cowboys are still searching for some consistency. Killdeer is riding a two-game losing skid and has losses in four out of its last five games.
Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. MST at Killdeer High School.
Devils Lake @ Dickinson High — Girls Hockey — Saturday, Jan. 31
Jacob Cheris / The Dickinson Press
The last time these two teams met, the Mavericks won in a 2-1 overtime decision. Saturday’s contest is the back half of a back-to-back home weekend, where DHS will take on Grand Forks on Friday.
Saturday’s game is the best chance DHS has to get in the win column. The Firebirds are currently sitting in last place in the conference and don’t have a win this season. They’ve also struggled to put the puck in the back of the net, scoring just 10 goals through 13 games.
Dickinson (4-10, 1-10-2) was in a tight first period with Bismarck Century last Friday, but things once started to turn sideways in the second period, when the Patriots scored two goals on 19 shots and held DHS to three.
Puck drop is slated for 1 p.m. MST at the West River Ice Center.
Jacob Cheris covers a variety of high school and college sports. A graduate of Penn State University’s class of 2023, with a degree in broadcast journalism, he covered Penn State Men’s Hockey for three years. Jacob also covers Big Ten Hockey for College Hockey News.
Ohio State Buckeyes defensive coordinator Matt Patricia isn’t returning to Columbus to mess around. He wants to win and wants to do so immediately to erase the bad taste from the Buckeyes’ Cotton Bowl loss to the Miami Hurricanes last month.
To do so, Patricia needed a mindset shift. It’s one made famous by ex-Ohio State legend Woody Hayes, whose words still resonate with Buckeye faithful to this day.
“You Win With People.”
“When you go into a new building, man, you better leave all that baggage behind,” Patricia said, via The Silver Bulletin.” “You [had] better leave that behind because they don’t deserve it or they’re not there in that same space.”
Patricia wants his players to remember, whether it’s ex-safety Caleb Downs or a practice squad plsyer thst he wants to remain in their life for as long as he can instead of just being transactional.
“I really have a lot of joy in this and love being around the guys and the relationships,” Patricia said. “I’ve got guys that I coached in the 90s, and I’m still really close with, and guys that don’t call, they just be like, ‘Hey, I need your advice on this,’ or after football, career advice and things like that. So I love being that mentor.”
Patricia does tend to use the growth vs. fixed mindset, channeling the growth mindset as his main source of positive coaching.
“I just try to take it one step at a time,” Patricia said. “I always want to have that growth mindset. I always want to be a curious learner.”
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Nonetheless, though, one thing is non-negotiable.
“I’m gonna give you everything I got,” Patricia said. “I’m really gonna sacrifice everything I can to make sure I come through for you.”
Regardless of the outcome, that’s Patricia’s constant message.
Everything can be reset, which Patricia realized after a failed stint with the Detroit Lions.
“I wasn’t my best version,” Patricia said. “I think learning that is really important. That’s how you get better as a coach, as a person.”
Now, he says feels much better about himself overall. Especially when it comes to mentoring players where he knows they will be successful with the next level like Downs.
“I think just in general with Caleb [Downs], just the amount of experience he has playing football is probably the most important thing,” Patricia said. “And his professionalism, and how he prepares, is probably the best example that I can point to for all the players.”
With Patricia at peace, the Buckeyes defense can move forward as well.
It remains to be seen whether everything pays off. Come August, we will find out.
The seven-time PRCA Top Indoor Rodeo of The Year is back once again in Rapid City, South Dakota. Rodeo Rapid City kicks off January 30th and is full of a week of non-stop action in the rodeo arena. As one of the biggest rodeos this early on in the season, athletes are ready to show out after the National Western Stock Show and the Fort Worth Stock Show.
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Starting things off in The Monument Arena will be Xtreme Bulls 2026 on Friday night, following that on Saturday the 31st is Xtreme Broncs 2026. These two events mark the opening of what is sure to be some of the season’s most action-packed performances from the best athletes bull riding, and saddle bronc riding have to offer.
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The official Rodeo Rapid City doesn’t kick off until Friday, February 5th, and it continues all weekend. Last year, securing the top spot for rough stock was Garrett Shadbolt in bareback riding, Damian Brennan in saddle bronc riding and Jake Lockwood in bull riding.
Men’s timed event winners were Boyd Sawyer (steer wrestling), Cullen Teller and Brayden Fillmore (team roping), and Tyler Milligan (tie-down roping). Katie Chism won the barrel racing.
Last season, this rodeo was an indicator of how 2025 was going to go for some of these athletes. More than one who performed well in Rapid City went on to secure a spot at the National Finals Rodeo. With a payout of nearly $200,000, a win here adds a nice chunk of change to season earnings totals early in the season.
Come For The Rodeo Stay For The Music
While there is just over a week of rodeo arena action happening in South Dakota, there will also be plenty to do in between. A new event is being added this year called Rope, Ride and Slide where two cowboys, one bronc rider and one steer wrestler each perform in individual events, then join together to team rope. This fun new addition happens Friday (Jan. 30th) and should be a way to introduce more people to the events of rodeo.
There will also be live performances happening all week as well. Kicking things off Friday night will be Tristan Schofield & The Drive by Night followed by Jessica Loobey on Saturday. During the week Big Skillet performs on Tuesday with Brandon Jones taking the stage Thursday. Rounding out musical acts are Tanner Usrey with Kenny Feidler (Friday, Feb. 6th) and Ole 60 with Rob Langdon (Saturday, Feb. 7th)
From rodeo action to live music, Rapid City is sure to be full of some of the best performances seen by rodeo fans so far this year.
To get tickets head to https://www.centralstatesfairinc.com/events
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