Missouri warned feds in 2021: Contamination of St. Charles County groundwater isn't improving

Missouri environmental regulators warned the federal government in 2021 that radioactive contamination of groundwater from a uranium processing site near St. Louis wasn’t improving despite cleanup efforts, according to documents reviewed by The Independent and MuckRock.

Officials with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy in May 2021, responding to the agency’s five-year review of its cleanup efforts at a Weldon Spring site where uranium was refined during the Cold War.

While the radioactive waste and contaminated debris from the processing site in St. Charles County have been contained, Missouri regulators noted that contamination to the surrounding groundwater wasn’t getting better.

“The (state) disagrees that the remedy is functioning as intended,” wrote Taylor Grabner, who at the time was serving in the federal facilities section of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.