Top Missouri House Democrat calls for special session on St. Louis nuclear waste

One of Missouri’s top Democratic officials asked the governor on Monday to call a special legislative session in response to news reports of the “unacceptable mismanagement” of radioactive waste in the St. Louis area.

“The problems related with this waste have festered for nearly 80 years,” House Minority Leader Crystal Quade said in a letter to Gov. Mike Parson. “It is well past time for us to begin the long process of finally resolving them for the sake of all Missourians.”

Quade, D-Springfield, is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2024. Her comments follow a six-month investigation by The Missouri Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press into radioactive contamination still lingering from World War II.

Uranium for the first atomic bomb was processed in downtown St. Louis, and radioactive waste was trucked across the region. Contamination from the effort still lingers in Weldon Spring, Coldwater Creek and the West Lake Landfill.

The newsrooms found that, for decades, federal officials and private companies either downplayed or failed to fully investigate the extent of radioactive contamination in St. Louis and St. Charles counties, allowing generations of families to be exposed.