According to a recent analysis by environmental investigation consultants, a primary school in the neighbourhood of St. Louis, Missouri, which produced nuclear weapons during World War II, has significant radioactive contamination.
Concerns regarding pollution at Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District in Florissant were validated by the research by Boston Chemical Data Corp, which had been raised by an earlier Army Corps of Engineers assessment.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the latest assessment is based on samples that were taken from the school in August. Boston Chemical remained mum over who or what ordered and paid for the report.
“I was heartbroken,” said Ashley Bernaugh, president of the Jana parent-teacher association who has a son at the school. “It sounds so corny, but it makes you want to stop breathing.
The school is located in the Coldwater Creek flood plain, which was contaminated by radioactive waste from the construction of wartime weapons. The waste was deposited in locations close to the Missouri River and the St. Louis Lambert International Airport. For more over 20 years, the Corps has been cleaning up the creek.
The Corps’ report also found contamination in the area but at much at lower levels, and it didn’t take any samples within 300 feet of the school.
Samples from Jana’s library, kitchen, classes, fields, and playgrounds were used in the most current report.
Lead-210, polonium, radium, and other radioactive isotopes were present at levels that were “far in excess” of what Boston Chemical had anticipated. The school’s interior dust samples were discovered to be polluted.
Inhaling or ingesting these radioactive materials can cause significant injury, the report said.
According to the assessment, “a considerable remedial programme will be needed to bring circumstances at the school in line with expectations.”
The new study is anticipated to take centre stage at the Hazelwood school board meeting on Tuesday. In a statement, the district stated that it will speak with its lawyers and specialists to decide the next course of action.
“Safety is absolutely our top priority for our staff and students,” board president Betsy Rachel said Saturday.
Following the receipt of a copy via a Freedom of Information Act request, Christen Commuso with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment presented the findings of the Corps’ report to the school board in June.
She declared, “I wouldn’t want my child attending this school. “These poisons have a cumulative effect.”
At a primary school in Missouri, radioactive trash was discovered.
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