Concerning levels of radioactive contamination were found at a suburban St. Louis school that sits a few miles away from an old World War II-era factory where nuclear waste was produced, according to multiple media reports.
Boston Chemical Data Corp. published its report that detected the contamination at the kindergarten playground at Jana Elementary School, as well as by the school’s basketball courts, kitchen, gym and boiler room, the Daily Mail reported.
The report found significant levels of radioactive isotope lead-210, polonium, radium and other toxins when researchers took samples from the school in August, according to the St. Louis Dispatch.
Boston Chemical didn’t say who requested the report, nor who funded it.
“I wouldn’t want my child in this school,” Christen Commuso, with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, told the newspaper. “The effect of these toxins is cumulative.”
Ms. Commuso presented the findings of a previous Army Corps of Engineers’ report on the environmental contamination in June to the school board for Hazelwood School District after obtaining the study through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Corps study, which began taking samples in 2018, didn’t conduct tests within 300 feet of Jana Elementary.
The school is situated in Coldwater Creek’s floodplain, which was contaminated by waste from nuclear bomb manufacturing at the factory during WWII. The Corps has been cleaning up the creek for more than 20 years.
In 2011, a group of residents who live near the creek began noticing people in their 30s and 40s developing rare cancers, the Dispatch reported.
A study by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Cancer Inquiry Program found “statistically significantly higher” cases of leukemia in ZIP codes near Coldwater Creek when looking at the years between 1996 and 2011.
The school board said in a statement that it’s aware of the report and is consulting with attorneys to experts to figure out the next steps.
“Safety is absolutely our top priority for our staff and students,” board president Betsy Rachel said Saturday, per the Dispatch.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
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