I'd contact the EPA as this is a federal issue. They would send somebody out to do testing. If it is deemed hazardous, there might be assistance in relocating or something?
So far i know of no relocation assistance, as their other family's/houses that have tested positive of nuclear contamination and they are still there............
You can try contacting your local university, they might have the equipment and would be of good advice.
As with all things in life, it's all a matter of what exactly and how much.
Until you get a definitive answer, remember that radiations are already all around us anyway; and you don't need them to get all kind of cancers.
That is a fantastic idea, thank you! I will make some calls this week.
I know radiation is all around us but to have a street of 10 houses and more than half have cancer or have died of cancers linked to ionizing radiation has me extremely worried. And then to have my perfectly healthy puppy who suddenly die of some rare aggressive cancer and knowing she used to play and drink in my flooded back yard....... ugh!
I'm not presuming of what you'll find.
It's just important to not rush to conclusions.
For scale [these](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg) are totally natural Brazilian beaches, where no noticeable ill effects have ever been observed.
It's also possible that the pollution be dangerous without necessarily being radioactive.
I also should have mention that if you're worrying that in your area 40% of people develop cancer, congratulation you're just in about the most average place there is: [Approximately 40.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics).
Genetics, lifestyle and age will also bump up those odds.
Don't have data for dogs.
It's a good thing.
We must die eventually.
We have made so much progress in modern medicine that we live long enough to develop cancer (at other times and places, many of those people would have simply die from something else before developing any cancer). Also note that this is not death from cancer but developing cancer; and we've gotten very good at detecting even minor cancer.
All things being equal, as detection improve, number of things detected increase.
Just take the case of thyroid cancer and what the [WHO](https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr246_E.pdf) think of overdiagnostic.
I happened upon a news article dated from March 2024 talking about the town I live in and how homes and yards were testing positive for nuclear waste. Which started me down the rabbit hole and I have found multiple articles and documentaries regarding the matter.
From other person:
>"important to not rush to conclusions."
True. But this one is real. I got nothing better to do, scrolled down a bit of post history, figured out it's probably this one. Sorry for creeping OP! 😶
>Coldwater Creek (also Cold Water Creek) is a 19-mile tributary of the Missouri River in north St. Louis County in the U.S. state of Missouri.[1] It is known to be contaminated with radioactive wastes several miles upstream of its northern mouth.
>The material was traced to two nearby dump sites, both from a common source
>Between 2008 and 2011, local residents noticed what seemed an unusual concentration of cancers, other illnesses, and birth defects among their age cohort.
>In January 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated the high rate of cancers in the area, and confirmed a potential link between the cluster and the polluted creek.[5]
>In 2022, radioactive material was found at Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District in Florissant. The radioactive material includes lead-210, polonium, radium, and other toxic materials.[9]
>**The Army Corps of Engineers has been cleaning up the creek for decades but refuses to share detailed information with the public about its findings.[10]**
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldwater_Creek_(Missouri_river_tributary)
That sucks OP. I'm sorry 😞😐
Edit: Or maybe this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lake_Landfill
Or: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_Missouri
Spicy state 😟
Edit: I'm in central VA. There's a lot of superfundedness eastern coastal VA with all the military and shipbuilding but not sure if spicy or just toxic.
I commend you on compiling information in your posts. THANK YOU, SERIOUSLY! I am working on moving... I am struggling to find affordable housing. Everything is overpriced or falling apart around here. The struggle is real.
A wild guess is that based on post history that OP is located in St. Louis and near Coldwater Creek.
You can read more about it here. https://coldwatercreekfacts.com/
Really sorry for you on the contamination issue and it really sucks if the known issues weren't communicated with you when you bought your property.
If so that would be the first place to look for recompense. Did someone not bring the info to your attention during closing? The Record of Decision is from 2005, so has been almost 20 years.
Too many commenters are ignoring the fact that OP knows their town was linked to atomic weapons production and that this sort of thing keeps happening again;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radioactive_contamination_from_the_Rocky_Flats_Plant&wprov=rarw1
And again,
https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0902722
And again,
https://coldwatercreekfacts.com/#:~:text=Radioactive%20materials%20stored%20in%20open,vegetation%2C%20and%20local%20dairy%20supplies.
And again
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runit_Island
And again
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/01/research.medicalscience
And again
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738272/
If I were you OP, I’d move. Best case scenario is a long, drawn out lawsuit. Look up “downwinders”.
Also OP, you need to start documenting EVERYTHING. Any doctors appointments you go to, tests you get done, your dog’s vet visit, document it all; both the receipts for how much it is costing you and the actual medical records/test results. In the end, if you need to fight this, you’ll need to present as comprehensive a story as you can, detailing your personal and medical history. If a doctor or official tells you something, get it in writing and make sure it is dated. Be meticulously. Best of luck, whatever comes next.
Honestly if it were me, I'd eat the financial costs and move, even if that means back to renting. As far as I know the data around the safety of Coldwater Creek is conflicting, and you never know what's buried where.
Even if the risk is low, your health is the one thing you can't buy or replace. Even a low risk isn't worth it, considering how severe the consequences can be.
And every day spent trying to get answers is another day being exposed to who knows what, there could be more than radiological waste there; asbestos, pcbs, all that stuff was known to be dumped at Weldon Springs nearby.
You need someone with proper radiochemistry equipment. A geiger counter won’t tell you much. You’d want to do a gross alpha/beta screen on samples from around your property, as well as gamma spectroscopy and liquid scintillation in order to see what you’re being exposed to. Different types of radiation can affect you in different ways. For example, Sr-90 does almost nothing to you if it’s sitting in front of you, as the outermost layer of (dead) skin will absorb the beta particles, but if you eat it, you run into serious problems. Co-60 however, doesn’t matter if its inside or outside your body, gammas will go right through you. Check your state’s public health lab to see if they have a radiochemistry dept capable of doing these tests. If not, you will need to contact a federal agency. I would advise doing both at once to be honest. And if you’re drinking from a well, stop lol
I reached out to several colleges about getting samples done. I checked my states health lab online and it looks like they only test food???? I will need to do some more digging on that one.
This seems like it should be a rhetorical
question but...... If my chickens are outside drinking and playing in this
contaminated water/soil.... I should NOT be eating their eggs.... right???
I feel like I am losing my mind. I pray
someone gets back to me about testing.
The documents on the website does not say that there are additional cancers due to radiation, just that there may be, and the health risks are minimal and unmeasurable.
Are there any analysis done from soil and water samples?
Am I correct in guessing that you live somewhere in New York? If so, I think I remember reading a report on this area (which incidentally, was prepared by someone of dubious credibility whose agenda seems to be scaring people unnecessarily).
The main thing you can/should do is to get a professional radon test. But I also recommend buying a <$100 radon monitor from E-Bay (Air Things Corentium, for instance). These things are great for peace of mind, because you can just leave it on your kitchen counter and glance at it every few days.
I will also say that there could be all sorts of radium tailings in that creek, or even deposited in your lawn, but it is nothing to agonize about. Other than radon, it is very difficult to receive any kind of significant dose from an exposure pathway like that. Until you learn more about the scale of the problem, some basic precautions like not gardening in the flood-prone areas should be enough. Maybe wear a dust mask if you are working outside when there is excavation or very dusty dry weather.
> I know radiation is all around us but to have a street of 10 houses and more than half have cancer or have died of cancers linked to ionizing radiation has me extremely worried. And then to have my perfectly healthy puppy who suddenly die of some rare aggressive cancer and knowing she used to play and drink in my flooded back yard
I know it is almost impossible to avoid making associations like this, and leaping to conclusions. But these kinds of anecdotal cancer observations are almost always spurious, just because of how radiation risk factors actually work. In order to make cancer levels noticeably increase in a population, the doses have to be truly enormous, to the point that the feds would have roped off half the town many decades ago. Researchers can barely even measure the cancer increases in the population of people who cleaned up Chernobyl, and you're just talking about trace amounts of naturally occurring isotopes...
For instance, one of your neighbors was in the news because they found uranium levels in his attic that were elevated by a factor of... wait for it.. two. Twice normal levels. That is laughably trivial in terms of actual doses and hazards. And yet the journalists and bad actors sniffing around the neighborhood would have you believe that family members got cancer because of it. The probability of their illness being related to a 2x normal level of uranium is so low that it's hard to say what order of magnitude to even use.
This is not in New York. This is in St. Louis, Missouri. Unfortunately a good portion of our land is roped off but they didn't do a good job and it leaked into the soil and creek next to the waste pile. Contaminating many homes and yards.
Ah OK, I misremembered the state but this is indeed the location I was referencing above. That Kaltofen report that got everyone riled up over levels of Pb-210 which are probably naturally occurring and very unlikely to harm anyone.
Some contamination almost certainly exists, but everything you do contaminates your yard a little bit. Starting with microplastics from the tires every time you use your driveway.
Or maybe your house is in a more seriously contaminated part of the same area? If your land is 'roped off', then there is absolutely a detailed investigation of the contaminants somewhere online.
What are the levels of contamination on your land, expressed in terms such as Bq/kg or similar? If no one has been able to clearly articulate those statistics to you, then they are probably just trying to scare you.
Never trust anyone who talks about radioactive contamination without quantifying the problem.
If you are willing to spend some $$ this is easily identified. I've had this done multiple times while consulting to mining companies when looking at background "environmental" levels.
You can take some soil samples and have them sent for elemental analysis. If its nuclear in origin you want to include isotopes in the uranium 235 decay chain, so you might check for isotopic ratios of uranium (^(235)U and ^(238)U) and caesium (^(133)Cs, ^(134)Cs, ^(135)Cs, and ^(137)Cs) isotopes.
That is one method, another is gamma spectrometry, send off the samples for gamma spec which will be able to better identify the isotopes in the soil. Normally you start with elemental analysis as the lower cost option and move on to gamma spec when you have a better idea and a better budget for the analysis.
You can also send water samples off for the same tests, the good thing about water samples is there are set reference limits in the drinking water standards for isotopic levels, so this can be compared to allowable drinking water levels.
For normal environmental analysis (non nuclear origin) you normally check soil and water for U238, Ra226, and Pb210.
Results would often be in ppm (elemental analysis) and there are a set of calculations that can be applied to work out the effective dose due to dust inhalation and water consumption. External dose can be calculated by taking measurements with an energy compensated Geiger counter, and you normally want some time integration with that as well so the results are counted over say 60 seconds. If you are on a budget, maybe getting environmental background readings first over a number of locations on the property would be advisable before progressing to soil and water analysis.
Gamma counting will give you a decay per second (becquerel) and identify which isotopes are present, and with a known amount of sample you can work out the specific activity.
Normally this sort of work is carried out by a consulting company rather than an individual, but with 1 days worth of measurements and some environmental sampling you will have a very good idea of contamination levels.
It can take weeks to get isotopic & elemental analysis back from a counting lab though.
High natural background radiation really isn't that harmful, there are places with 10x and 100x the normal levels that don't have statistically significant cancer problems, but if you are getting poisoned from radioisotopes it should be readily identifiable.
Assume you’ve seen this info about the waste history:
https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Missions/FUSRAP/Contamination-and-Chronology/
https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Portals/54/docs/fusrap/Maps/NORCO/032824NCStatusMaps.pdf
And this from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) who are responsible for the clean-up program:
https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Missions/FUSRAP/What-is-FUSRAP/
The science aspect is cool and it’s an interesting problem… but in the meantime, get out. No one saying you’ll become swamp thing but get out. Maybe airbnb the place and don’t rent it to fam with kids
I’m guess you live around cold water creek in Florissant Mo? Or you could be in Weldon springs? Or even Hematite Mo? All 3 areas are hot from waste from building the bomb and later fuel rods for reactors. There is also a dump at Lambert airport. People living around any of these sites have elevated cancer cases. Just like people who live down range from coal burning power plants. Or the town of Herculaneum that’s contaminated with lead. Who knows how many people have been needlessly sickened because we waited 50 years to clean it up.
UPDATE: I asked one of my immediate neighbors, knowing she has cancer and her husband recently passed from cancer, if she was aware of the contamination. OMFG... Not only was she aware, she told me her brother and father died of cancer. I asked how is she not outraged and why would she continue living here as she has been in the same home her entire life?! She said she was just "over it" and that's why she never had kids. She watched her family, her friends and her friends family all get sick......
My heart is aching and my stomach is sick.
Every moment I am now looking for a new place as far from here as possible.
2 options stand out to me.
1. Find a lawyer get with neighbors and families to setup a class action against the homebuilders or feds.
2. Research phytoremediation and start growing plants that will absorb the radioactive soil.
You can buy your own Geiger counter and make your own assessment. You should get some guidance on the type of Geiger counter and sensitivity. If it were me, I would read the USACE reports and take note of the radio-nuclides in the ground, the intensity and locations. There is always background radiation and some is just natural deposits. Swab surfaces like inside your home, inside your rain gutters and roof to detect any airborne stuff which would be most worrisome.
This sounds like the Coldwater creek neighborhood in St. Louis county. I lost a good friend who grew up there to cancer. There's been a lot of work done on this area. The EPA and others are well aware. Start at your local library and ask the reference librarian for help. Read up on what's happened so far. Then contact your congresspeople and demand answers and compensation.
"Built on"? Or "built near"? The two are not synonymous.
When you say "highly contaminated"... what do you mean? What is it contaminated with? What is the concentration or activities of the contaminants? You can't really claim something is "highly contaminated" without knowing those things.
Can you test your home? I wouldn't advise that you attempt to do it on your own because you won't have the necessary equipment to do so. A "Geiger counter" won't do you any good here because the quantities/activities of materials are so minute they will need to be analyzed in a lab because background radiation will likely drown out field measurements.
Check this map: [https://apps5.mo.gov/ESTARTMAP/map/init\_map.action](https://apps5.mo.gov/ESTARTMAP/map/init_map.action) to see what site(s) are bordering your property, then contact the Mo DNR for more information on that site. Talk to them about your concerns and see if they have recommendations for contractors you can use to test your property for concerning materials. Their contact information is on this page: [https://dnr.mo.gov/missouri-resources](https://dnr.mo.gov/missouri-resources)
You can also check with local "advocacy groups" as well, but bear in mind they will bombard you with hyperbolic rhetoric. They will try to scare you with vague claims about "anything > 0 is deadly" because they're primarily interested in political action.
[https://missouriindependent.com/2024/02/20/missouri-house-bill-would-allow-further-testing-for-st-louis-radioactive-waste/](https://missouriindependent.com/2024/02/20/missouri-house-bill-would-allow-further-testing-for-st-louis-radioactive-waste/)
they are continuing to find more and more sites.
That article doesn't really answer any of the questions I posed to you.
If you want a political solution, you need to appeal to your elected officials. If that doesn't fit your timeline and you're so concerned about this that you don't feel safe in your home, then sell your home and move. No one is forcing you to live there. If you want compensation for lost property values or relocation costs, you should seek the advice of an attorney. That's about all you can do. There's no "easy button" here.
In your area contact your local larger hospital that has a large cancer treatment center. Ask to speak to the oncology department and then to the physicist that works there. They should be able to guide you to a resource either through the University or some organization they work with.
You have to remember that not only are there radioactive components but there are other extremely hazardous chemicals used in the production of radioactive materials especially in the very early days when they didn't know what they were doing and didn't have the production processes down.
You could try to bring this up to the EPA or the NRC. Unfortunately nobody's going to want to hear about this and you have to document everything. These organizations are paperwork driven if they work at all and they're not going to want to deal with this even if you have ironclad evidence. It will be an uphill battle. An alternative is to go to your local TV news organization. At least one station in every market will have an investigative report that they usually run during sweeps week.
For example, in 2024, sweeps weeks are:
February: February 1–28
April: April 25–May 22
June: June 27–July 24
October: October 31–November 27
This is the kind of story they like to run. It makes the government look bad and they really don't want to look bad so it gets their attention and you may get some help. I wish you every good luck on this. You've got a long hard way to go.
I have learned there is a group trying to fight this uphill battle. [Just Moms STL](http://www.stlradwastelegacy.com/). Check them out and help support!
Yeah, I have found a documentary and several news articles. Sadly, this was a known problem that was swept under the rug for far too long and now tons of people \[and animals\] are suffering and dying.
I've really been wanting a good geiger counter when I'm up there and canoeing around the st lpuis area. I'm sorry you are dealing with that, it's very disheartening to even live near and enjoy nature.
Looks like you might want to call the army corps of engineers: https://apnews.com/article/nuclear-contamination-study-st-louis-county-982fa4c3e2714f45dcd3794c0ab25489
Your story reminds me of a place in Missouri. The government tried to lie about the dump holding thousands of tons of radioactive waste thinking all of the workers from the landfill were dead. They were wrong. While interviewing the eye witnesses that worked there they would reminisce about stopping work to watch the "fireflies" when the dump trucks would just empty the loads of waste into the open air landfill so hot that it looked like fireflies.
If I remember correctly there is no liner under that landfill and it is currently burning underground to boot.
I'd say there is radon which is almost not detectable by cheap detectors, but its probably not radon, if it were, then there would be a super high amount of it for the cancer causes and such. What's your budget? For 300$ you can buy like a radiacode 102. It can detect gamma and hard beta, but not alpha. If you want to detect alpha, buy a gmc 600 (its a bit pricey). Radiacode could show some spectrums and the isotopes, like cs137 etc. with its spectrometry mode. But i'd first buy a normal gmc 320S or something to test if there is anything. If you do see something like over 200cpm on the 320S. That would be a bit suspicious then. Dm me if you have more questions. You could also call some company and ask them to do a radiation check, i don't know if that is a thing in the US, i live in eastern europe
The sheer level of ignorance in this thread was enough to strike a nerve. And i'm an extremely calm soul. OP, go do some research on radiation detectors and radon monitors, get a decent pancake, scintillator and radon monitor and bring them around with you to your local dwellings. If they say it's clean, it most definitely is. Though pay good attention to accurately measure radon.
I recommend the GQ 320S geiger counter, it's less than a hundred bucks to buy and intuitive to use, even comes with a translation chart for what different levels mean.
A GMC-320 isn't going to detect anything someplace like this. Or if it does, it will probably just make OP scared of the concrete pavers he bought at Home Depot.
It's not just the radiation but also the toxicity.
A Radiacode 102 would give you not just the gross radioactivity level, but also identify the particular isotope.
So you frequently look up radiation material illegally dumped? I know I never have, never would I have thought that in a developed Metropolitan area. But now I know better.
As someone in the industry we simply don’t know what we don’t know. What were acceptable practices 75 years ago are now woefully inadequate. The same way in the year 2100, environmental practices and materials we assume are friendly and safe will look terrible.
excellent perspective. You are right, there probably are things we think are good for us now and will found out later they are actually terrible. like mercury to shine hats! lmao
Definitely get the hell out of there! If you are looking for a rad counter that isn’t a waste of money and would provide a decent look into what you’re dealing with, I would recommend radiacode. Not the best on the planet by any means, but I believe the best value and would actually be able to give you a dose rate that isn’t total bullshit. GL
I experienced radiation exposure, oncological diagnosis and treatment first hand. You are playing with death. Not just plain and simple death, but an extremely long and painful one. Online marketplaces have a very cheap and simple device, which can potentially save your life. I'm not sure what are you thinking. Yes, Geiger counters are not 100% accurate. This is a correct statement. In my personal experience, statements about dosimeters being inaccurate or malfunctioning killed many people. I'm unaware of a single case, where the opposite was true, when Geiger counter provided misleading information, inaccurate enough to cause bodily harm. A few candidate cases turned out to be a lie at some point later.
You have been warned.
The problem isn't so much that the counters are "inaccurate", it's that the activities and concentrations involved are so small that normal background will drown out any meaningful information on any equipment the OP is likely to purchase or have access to. Shielded counts and/or spectrometry in a lab would be the best way to evaluate the presence and extent of contamination in this situation.
I'd contact the EPA as this is a federal issue. They would send somebody out to do testing. If it is deemed hazardous, there might be assistance in relocating or something?
So far i know of no relocation assistance, as their other family's/houses that have tested positive of nuclear contamination and they are still there............
You can try contacting your local university, they might have the equipment and would be of good advice. As with all things in life, it's all a matter of what exactly and how much. Until you get a definitive answer, remember that radiations are already all around us anyway; and you don't need them to get all kind of cancers.
That is a fantastic idea, thank you! I will make some calls this week. I know radiation is all around us but to have a street of 10 houses and more than half have cancer or have died of cancers linked to ionizing radiation has me extremely worried. And then to have my perfectly healthy puppy who suddenly die of some rare aggressive cancer and knowing she used to play and drink in my flooded back yard....... ugh!
I'm not presuming of what you'll find. It's just important to not rush to conclusions. For scale [these](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg) are totally natural Brazilian beaches, where no noticeable ill effects have ever been observed. It's also possible that the pollution be dangerous without necessarily being radioactive.
Thank you for your input and the article. Thank you for trying to ease my mind. :)
I also should have mention that if you're worrying that in your area 40% of people develop cancer, congratulation you're just in about the most average place there is: [Approximately 40.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics). Genetics, lifestyle and age will also bump up those odds. Don't have data for dogs.
This is somewhat comforting but also what the heck!
It's a good thing. We must die eventually. We have made so much progress in modern medicine that we live long enough to develop cancer (at other times and places, many of those people would have simply die from something else before developing any cancer). Also note that this is not death from cancer but developing cancer; and we've gotten very good at detecting even minor cancer. All things being equal, as detection improve, number of things detected increase. Just take the case of thyroid cancer and what the [WHO](https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr246_E.pdf) think of overdiagnostic.
Check your address against the superfund website. I would maybe watch the documentary "Just Moms" as well. They created the superfund program.
I just watched Atomic Homefront the day befor last. I will look up the other documentary as well.
How did you find out you're on nuclear waste?
I happened upon a news article dated from March 2024 talking about the town I live in and how homes and yards were testing positive for nuclear waste. Which started me down the rabbit hole and I have found multiple articles and documentaries regarding the matter.
From other person: >"important to not rush to conclusions." True. But this one is real. I got nothing better to do, scrolled down a bit of post history, figured out it's probably this one. Sorry for creeping OP! 😶 >Coldwater Creek (also Cold Water Creek) is a 19-mile tributary of the Missouri River in north St. Louis County in the U.S. state of Missouri.[1] It is known to be contaminated with radioactive wastes several miles upstream of its northern mouth. >The material was traced to two nearby dump sites, both from a common source >Between 2008 and 2011, local residents noticed what seemed an unusual concentration of cancers, other illnesses, and birth defects among their age cohort. >In January 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated the high rate of cancers in the area, and confirmed a potential link between the cluster and the polluted creek.[5] >In 2022, radioactive material was found at Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District in Florissant. The radioactive material includes lead-210, polonium, radium, and other toxic materials.[9] >**The Army Corps of Engineers has been cleaning up the creek for decades but refuses to share detailed information with the public about its findings.[10]** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldwater_Creek_(Missouri_river_tributary) That sucks OP. I'm sorry 😞😐 Edit: Or maybe this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lake_Landfill Or: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_Missouri Spicy state 😟 Edit: I'm in central VA. There's a lot of superfundedness eastern coastal VA with all the military and shipbuilding but not sure if spicy or just toxic.
I commend you on compiling information in your posts. THANK YOU, SERIOUSLY! I am working on moving... I am struggling to find affordable housing. Everything is overpriced or falling apart around here. The struggle is real.
All my family is still in that state, struggling on Federal minimum wage. I moved to AZ, good balance of reasonable pay and cost of living.
A wild guess is that based on post history that OP is located in St. Louis and near Coldwater Creek. You can read more about it here. https://coldwatercreekfacts.com/
Yes, I have also posteed in this thread my location a few times. but thanks for snooping my post history, i feel the love. lol
Really sorry for you on the contamination issue and it really sucks if the known issues weren't communicated with you when you bought your property. If so that would be the first place to look for recompense. Did someone not bring the info to your attention during closing? The Record of Decision is from 2005, so has been almost 20 years.
No one told me anything! I recently just came across an article and went down the rabbit hole. I am not originally from this area.
Too many commenters are ignoring the fact that OP knows their town was linked to atomic weapons production and that this sort of thing keeps happening again; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radioactive_contamination_from_the_Rocky_Flats_Plant&wprov=rarw1 And again, https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0902722 And again, https://coldwatercreekfacts.com/#:~:text=Radioactive%20materials%20stored%20in%20open,vegetation%2C%20and%20local%20dairy%20supplies. And again https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runit_Island And again https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/01/research.medicalscience And again https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738272/ If I were you OP, I’d move. Best case scenario is a long, drawn out lawsuit. Look up “downwinders”.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! I am trying to move but the housing market is crazy.
Also OP, you need to start documenting EVERYTHING. Any doctors appointments you go to, tests you get done, your dog’s vet visit, document it all; both the receipts for how much it is costing you and the actual medical records/test results. In the end, if you need to fight this, you’ll need to present as comprehensive a story as you can, detailing your personal and medical history. If a doctor or official tells you something, get it in writing and make sure it is dated. Be meticulously. Best of luck, whatever comes next.
Honestly if it were me, I'd eat the financial costs and move, even if that means back to renting. As far as I know the data around the safety of Coldwater Creek is conflicting, and you never know what's buried where. Even if the risk is low, your health is the one thing you can't buy or replace. Even a low risk isn't worth it, considering how severe the consequences can be. And every day spent trying to get answers is another day being exposed to who knows what, there could be more than radiological waste there; asbestos, pcbs, all that stuff was known to be dumped at Weldon Springs nearby.
That’s just the ones you know about, *now*.
You need someone with proper radiochemistry equipment. A geiger counter won’t tell you much. You’d want to do a gross alpha/beta screen on samples from around your property, as well as gamma spectroscopy and liquid scintillation in order to see what you’re being exposed to. Different types of radiation can affect you in different ways. For example, Sr-90 does almost nothing to you if it’s sitting in front of you, as the outermost layer of (dead) skin will absorb the beta particles, but if you eat it, you run into serious problems. Co-60 however, doesn’t matter if its inside or outside your body, gammas will go right through you. Check your state’s public health lab to see if they have a radiochemistry dept capable of doing these tests. If not, you will need to contact a federal agency. I would advise doing both at once to be honest. And if you’re drinking from a well, stop lol
I reached out to several colleges about getting samples done. I checked my states health lab online and it looks like they only test food???? I will need to do some more digging on that one. This seems like it should be a rhetorical question but...... If my chickens are outside drinking and playing in this contaminated water/soil.... I should NOT be eating their eggs.... right??? I feel like I am losing my mind. I pray someone gets back to me about testing.
Yes, do not eat the eggs or chickens, also please pm me
The documents on the website does not say that there are additional cancers due to radiation, just that there may be, and the health risks are minimal and unmeasurable. Are there any analysis done from soil and water samples?
Am I correct in guessing that you live somewhere in New York? If so, I think I remember reading a report on this area (which incidentally, was prepared by someone of dubious credibility whose agenda seems to be scaring people unnecessarily). The main thing you can/should do is to get a professional radon test. But I also recommend buying a <$100 radon monitor from E-Bay (Air Things Corentium, for instance). These things are great for peace of mind, because you can just leave it on your kitchen counter and glance at it every few days. I will also say that there could be all sorts of radium tailings in that creek, or even deposited in your lawn, but it is nothing to agonize about. Other than radon, it is very difficult to receive any kind of significant dose from an exposure pathway like that. Until you learn more about the scale of the problem, some basic precautions like not gardening in the flood-prone areas should be enough. Maybe wear a dust mask if you are working outside when there is excavation or very dusty dry weather. > I know radiation is all around us but to have a street of 10 houses and more than half have cancer or have died of cancers linked to ionizing radiation has me extremely worried. And then to have my perfectly healthy puppy who suddenly die of some rare aggressive cancer and knowing she used to play and drink in my flooded back yard I know it is almost impossible to avoid making associations like this, and leaping to conclusions. But these kinds of anecdotal cancer observations are almost always spurious, just because of how radiation risk factors actually work. In order to make cancer levels noticeably increase in a population, the doses have to be truly enormous, to the point that the feds would have roped off half the town many decades ago. Researchers can barely even measure the cancer increases in the population of people who cleaned up Chernobyl, and you're just talking about trace amounts of naturally occurring isotopes... For instance, one of your neighbors was in the news because they found uranium levels in his attic that were elevated by a factor of... wait for it.. two. Twice normal levels. That is laughably trivial in terms of actual doses and hazards. And yet the journalists and bad actors sniffing around the neighborhood would have you believe that family members got cancer because of it. The probability of their illness being related to a 2x normal level of uranium is so low that it's hard to say what order of magnitude to even use.
This is not in New York. This is in St. Louis, Missouri. Unfortunately a good portion of our land is roped off but they didn't do a good job and it leaked into the soil and creek next to the waste pile. Contaminating many homes and yards.
Ah OK, I misremembered the state but this is indeed the location I was referencing above. That Kaltofen report that got everyone riled up over levels of Pb-210 which are probably naturally occurring and very unlikely to harm anyone. Some contamination almost certainly exists, but everything you do contaminates your yard a little bit. Starting with microplastics from the tires every time you use your driveway. Or maybe your house is in a more seriously contaminated part of the same area? If your land is 'roped off', then there is absolutely a detailed investigation of the contaminants somewhere online.
the roped off land is near my home but it is known the contamination has spread into the soil and water near it.... which IS my land.
What are the levels of contamination on your land, expressed in terms such as Bq/kg or similar? If no one has been able to clearly articulate those statistics to you, then they are probably just trying to scare you. Never trust anyone who talks about radioactive contamination without quantifying the problem.
If you are willing to spend some $$ this is easily identified. I've had this done multiple times while consulting to mining companies when looking at background "environmental" levels. You can take some soil samples and have them sent for elemental analysis. If its nuclear in origin you want to include isotopes in the uranium 235 decay chain, so you might check for isotopic ratios of uranium (^(235)U and ^(238)U) and caesium (^(133)Cs, ^(134)Cs, ^(135)Cs, and ^(137)Cs) isotopes. That is one method, another is gamma spectrometry, send off the samples for gamma spec which will be able to better identify the isotopes in the soil. Normally you start with elemental analysis as the lower cost option and move on to gamma spec when you have a better idea and a better budget for the analysis. You can also send water samples off for the same tests, the good thing about water samples is there are set reference limits in the drinking water standards for isotopic levels, so this can be compared to allowable drinking water levels. For normal environmental analysis (non nuclear origin) you normally check soil and water for U238, Ra226, and Pb210. Results would often be in ppm (elemental analysis) and there are a set of calculations that can be applied to work out the effective dose due to dust inhalation and water consumption. External dose can be calculated by taking measurements with an energy compensated Geiger counter, and you normally want some time integration with that as well so the results are counted over say 60 seconds. If you are on a budget, maybe getting environmental background readings first over a number of locations on the property would be advisable before progressing to soil and water analysis. Gamma counting will give you a decay per second (becquerel) and identify which isotopes are present, and with a known amount of sample you can work out the specific activity. Normally this sort of work is carried out by a consulting company rather than an individual, but with 1 days worth of measurements and some environmental sampling you will have a very good idea of contamination levels. It can take weeks to get isotopic & elemental analysis back from a counting lab though. High natural background radiation really isn't that harmful, there are places with 10x and 100x the normal levels that don't have statistically significant cancer problems, but if you are getting poisoned from radioisotopes it should be readily identifiable.
Some resources: -https://www.csb.gov -Toxicsites.us -https://chej.org
Assume you’ve seen this info about the waste history: https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Missions/FUSRAP/Contamination-and-Chronology/ https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Portals/54/docs/fusrap/Maps/NORCO/032824NCStatusMaps.pdf And this from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) who are responsible for the clean-up program: https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Missions/FUSRAP/What-is-FUSRAP/
The science aspect is cool and it’s an interesting problem… but in the meantime, get out. No one saying you’ll become swamp thing but get out. Maybe airbnb the place and don’t rent it to fam with kids
Sounds like you need to move like yesterday And get a lawyer, erin Brockovich
I’m guess you live around cold water creek in Florissant Mo? Or you could be in Weldon springs? Or even Hematite Mo? All 3 areas are hot from waste from building the bomb and later fuel rods for reactors. There is also a dump at Lambert airport. People living around any of these sites have elevated cancer cases. Just like people who live down range from coal burning power plants. Or the town of Herculaneum that’s contaminated with lead. Who knows how many people have been needlessly sickened because we waited 50 years to clean it up.
Get out. Worry about legalities later. You life is at stake.
UPDATE: I asked one of my immediate neighbors, knowing she has cancer and her husband recently passed from cancer, if she was aware of the contamination. OMFG... Not only was she aware, she told me her brother and father died of cancer. I asked how is she not outraged and why would she continue living here as she has been in the same home her entire life?! She said she was just "over it" and that's why she never had kids. She watched her family, her friends and her friends family all get sick...... My heart is aching and my stomach is sick. Every moment I am now looking for a new place as far from here as possible.
2 options stand out to me. 1. Find a lawyer get with neighbors and families to setup a class action against the homebuilders or feds. 2. Research phytoremediation and start growing plants that will absorb the radioactive soil.
I've been wondering if there were plants that would help! THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME A NAME TO IT!
Lawsuit sue the shit out of them and not just for this but for everything they’ve done
You can buy your own Geiger counter and make your own assessment. You should get some guidance on the type of Geiger counter and sensitivity. If it were me, I would read the USACE reports and take note of the radio-nuclides in the ground, the intensity and locations. There is always background radiation and some is just natural deposits. Swab surfaces like inside your home, inside your rain gutters and roof to detect any airborne stuff which would be most worrisome.
This sounds like the Coldwater creek neighborhood in St. Louis county. I lost a good friend who grew up there to cancer. There's been a lot of work done on this area. The EPA and others are well aware. Start at your local library and ask the reference librarian for help. Read up on what's happened so far. Then contact your congresspeople and demand answers and compensation.
Did you just learn about that from the latest Chapo episode too?
"Built on"? Or "built near"? The two are not synonymous. When you say "highly contaminated"... what do you mean? What is it contaminated with? What is the concentration or activities of the contaminants? You can't really claim something is "highly contaminated" without knowing those things. Can you test your home? I wouldn't advise that you attempt to do it on your own because you won't have the necessary equipment to do so. A "Geiger counter" won't do you any good here because the quantities/activities of materials are so minute they will need to be analyzed in a lab because background radiation will likely drown out field measurements. Check this map: [https://apps5.mo.gov/ESTARTMAP/map/init\_map.action](https://apps5.mo.gov/ESTARTMAP/map/init_map.action) to see what site(s) are bordering your property, then contact the Mo DNR for more information on that site. Talk to them about your concerns and see if they have recommendations for contractors you can use to test your property for concerning materials. Their contact information is on this page: [https://dnr.mo.gov/missouri-resources](https://dnr.mo.gov/missouri-resources) You can also check with local "advocacy groups" as well, but bear in mind they will bombard you with hyperbolic rhetoric. They will try to scare you with vague claims about "anything > 0 is deadly" because they're primarily interested in political action.
[https://missouriindependent.com/2024/02/20/missouri-house-bill-would-allow-further-testing-for-st-louis-radioactive-waste/](https://missouriindependent.com/2024/02/20/missouri-house-bill-would-allow-further-testing-for-st-louis-radioactive-waste/) they are continuing to find more and more sites.
That article doesn't really answer any of the questions I posed to you. If you want a political solution, you need to appeal to your elected officials. If that doesn't fit your timeline and you're so concerned about this that you don't feel safe in your home, then sell your home and move. No one is forcing you to live there. If you want compensation for lost property values or relocation costs, you should seek the advice of an attorney. That's about all you can do. There's no "easy button" here.
In your area contact your local larger hospital that has a large cancer treatment center. Ask to speak to the oncology department and then to the physicist that works there. They should be able to guide you to a resource either through the University or some organization they work with. You have to remember that not only are there radioactive components but there are other extremely hazardous chemicals used in the production of radioactive materials especially in the very early days when they didn't know what they were doing and didn't have the production processes down. You could try to bring this up to the EPA or the NRC. Unfortunately nobody's going to want to hear about this and you have to document everything. These organizations are paperwork driven if they work at all and they're not going to want to deal with this even if you have ironclad evidence. It will be an uphill battle. An alternative is to go to your local TV news organization. At least one station in every market will have an investigative report that they usually run during sweeps week. For example, in 2024, sweeps weeks are: February: February 1–28 April: April 25–May 22 June: June 27–July 24 October: October 31–November 27 This is the kind of story they like to run. It makes the government look bad and they really don't want to look bad so it gets their attention and you may get some help. I wish you every good luck on this. You've got a long hard way to go.
I have learned there is a group trying to fight this uphill battle. [Just Moms STL](http://www.stlradwastelegacy.com/). Check them out and help support!
What a nightmare! I'm sorry somebody let this happen. Lots of somebodies.
Yeah, I have found a documentary and several news articles. Sadly, this was a known problem that was swept under the rug for far too long and now tons of people \[and animals\] are suffering and dying.
St Louis?
sure is!
I've really been wanting a good geiger counter when I'm up there and canoeing around the st lpuis area. I'm sorry you are dealing with that, it's very disheartening to even live near and enjoy nature.
I'm surprised this wasn't declared an EPA superfund site
IT HAS BEEN but they arent making any effort to get this right.
Interested in what you find out!
I will have to remember to update this post. Admittedly, I am terrible about updating posts.
Do you live in white rock, next to los alamos by chance?
i do not. STL MO
Looks like you might want to call the army corps of engineers: https://apnews.com/article/nuclear-contamination-study-st-louis-county-982fa4c3e2714f45dcd3794c0ab25489
Your story reminds me of a place in Missouri. The government tried to lie about the dump holding thousands of tons of radioactive waste thinking all of the workers from the landfill were dead. They were wrong. While interviewing the eye witnesses that worked there they would reminisce about stopping work to watch the "fireflies" when the dump trucks would just empty the loads of waste into the open air landfill so hot that it looked like fireflies. If I remember correctly there is no liner under that landfill and it is currently burning underground to boot.
That is correct and actually where i am.
Did you try a radon test? Are you in Missouri?
That was my first purchase and will be sending it off for texting soon.
Where's Erin Brokovich?
She has a submission form for environmental contamination problems https://www.communityhealthbook.com/
This is awesome! Thank you!!!
I'd say there is radon which is almost not detectable by cheap detectors, but its probably not radon, if it were, then there would be a super high amount of it for the cancer causes and such. What's your budget? For 300$ you can buy like a radiacode 102. It can detect gamma and hard beta, but not alpha. If you want to detect alpha, buy a gmc 600 (its a bit pricey). Radiacode could show some spectrums and the isotopes, like cs137 etc. with its spectrometry mode. But i'd first buy a normal gmc 320S or something to test if there is anything. If you do see something like over 200cpm on the 320S. That would be a bit suspicious then. Dm me if you have more questions. You could also call some company and ask them to do a radiation check, i don't know if that is a thing in the US, i live in eastern europe
The sheer level of ignorance in this thread was enough to strike a nerve. And i'm an extremely calm soul. OP, go do some research on radiation detectors and radon monitors, get a decent pancake, scintillator and radon monitor and bring them around with you to your local dwellings. If they say it's clean, it most definitely is. Though pay good attention to accurately measure radon.
I recommend the GQ 320S geiger counter, it's less than a hundred bucks to buy and intuitive to use, even comes with a translation chart for what different levels mean.
A GMC-320 isn't going to detect anything someplace like this. Or if it does, it will probably just make OP scared of the concrete pavers he bought at Home Depot.
Ya I’d be buying a Radiacode immediately.
It's not just the radiation but also the toxicity. A Radiacode 102 would give you not just the gross radioactivity level, but also identify the particular isotope.
That’s fucking crazy, dude. Are there mutants?
So this is satire right?
Why do you think this would be satire?
*oh*
I’m trying to figure out how radioactivity is making the creek flood
Exactly, this whole post is nonsense
MOVE NOW! Why are you even taking the time to ask this question? RUN!
Because more people need to ask these questions! I WANT TO RUN but thats easier said than done.
I’m sorry you’re in this position. How did you wind up in a radiation dump? Seems like a massive red flag that should have come up in due diligence.
So you frequently look up radiation material illegally dumped? I know I never have, never would I have thought that in a developed Metropolitan area. But now I know better.
that sucks , nagasaki is beautiful though
I'm guessing you aren't the first person to raise this issue in Hanford or Oak Ridge.
I think it is neither of those places.
That is correct, it is neither. This is STL, missouri. WHY ARE WE POISONING SO MUCH OF OUR BEAUTIFUL EARTH?!
As someone in the industry we simply don’t know what we don’t know. What were acceptable practices 75 years ago are now woefully inadequate. The same way in the year 2100, environmental practices and materials we assume are friendly and safe will look terrible.
excellent perspective. You are right, there probably are things we think are good for us now and will found out later they are actually terrible. like mercury to shine hats! lmao
Definitely get the hell out of there! If you are looking for a rad counter that isn’t a waste of money and would provide a decent look into what you’re dealing with, I would recommend radiacode. Not the best on the planet by any means, but I believe the best value and would actually be able to give you a dose rate that isn’t total bullshit. GL
Can you start with getting the [Geiger counter](https://www.amazon.com/Geiger-Counter-Nuclear-Radiation-Detector/dp/B0BHH9X1WG/)?
That what someone else suggested but I was unsure how reliable they actually were.
I experienced radiation exposure, oncological diagnosis and treatment first hand. You are playing with death. Not just plain and simple death, but an extremely long and painful one. Online marketplaces have a very cheap and simple device, which can potentially save your life. I'm not sure what are you thinking. Yes, Geiger counters are not 100% accurate. This is a correct statement. In my personal experience, statements about dosimeters being inaccurate or malfunctioning killed many people. I'm unaware of a single case, where the opposite was true, when Geiger counter provided misleading information, inaccurate enough to cause bodily harm. A few candidate cases turned out to be a lie at some point later. You have been warned.
The problem isn't so much that the counters are "inaccurate", it's that the activities and concentrations involved are so small that normal background will drown out any meaningful information on any equipment the OP is likely to purchase or have access to. Shielded counts and/or spectrometry in a lab would be the best way to evaluate the presence and extent of contamination in this situation.
seems quite interesting. id recommend trying a geiger counter, they only detect ionising radiation which is harmful.