Missourians suffering from WWII-era radioactive contamination ask House panel for help

      A House committee has heard from dozens of Missourians that it could help secure relief for families that have suffered for decades due to radioactive contamination throughout the St. Louis region.

Representatives Tricia Byrnes (at podium) and Richard West (behind her) are joined by dozens of St. Louis region residents ahead of a committee hearing about their resolutions dealing with radioactive contamination left in that region by work related to the Manhattan Project. (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      Nuclear weapons development and testing there in the 1940s and ‘50s contributed to the U.S. having the atomic bombs used in World War II.  That work, also known as “The Manhattan Project,” also eventually led to the dumping of nuclear waste near Lambert airport which contaminated soil, Coldwater Creek, and the Creek’s floodplain. 

Residents who live or have lived, or whose families have lived, in the affected region, testified for more than four hours Tuesday night about House Concurrent Resolutions 21 and 22, which would trigger an investigation by state agencies into whether those residents could be eligible for federal relief funds in programs that already exist to compensate those harmed by nuclear testing.

      The Committee on General Laws heard story after story of cancer clusters; high concentrations of extremely rare diagnoses; and of mental, physical, and financial suffering that has impacted multiple generations. 

      The sponsor of HCR 21 is Tricia Byrnes (R-Wentzville), whose son was diagnosed at age 15 with thymoma, a form of cancer typically caused by the use of radiation or chemotherapy to treat a different cancer.  Some experts have told her that his may be the only case in history of thymoma being a patient’s primary diagnosis. 

      It was his diagnosis that led to her investigating the issue of contamination in the St. Louis region, and eventually to filing HCR 21.

      “St. Louis people are [here tonight] because they still are going disregarded, disrespected, and absolutely gaslighted.  I’m getting people who are texting me now going, ‘I have two forms of breast cancer that are not the same cancer and they’re not genetically related,’ and what they’re asking me that’s the most troubling is, ‘I don’t know what I did.  Do you think it’s related?’  That’s not a question for me.  That’s a question for our federal government,” said Byrnes.

      Representative Richard West (R-Wentzville), who sponsors HCR 22, said he began learning about the situation after his mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.  He learned that one cause of that form of cancer is contaminated water, and he knew that among the sites tested for radioactive contamination were wells like those on his parents’ property.  

      “A year later I am knee-deep in one of the largest atrocities laid on the American people by their government.  The issue spreads from the Mallinckrodt sites in St. Louis City out to Latty Avenue, the Berkeley, Bridgeton, and Hazelwood areas, Coldwater Creek through Bridgeton and the legacy landfills, and finally out into St. Charles County’s Weldon Springs site, owned by the Department of Energy,” said West.  “While most of these sites are proclaimed as ‘cleaned up,’ we are constantly finding hot spots and families impacted by these areas and the dangers they hold.”

      One of those who testified Tuesday was Christen Commuso, the Community Outreach Specialist with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.  Commuso also lived in St. Ann until the age of 7, and often played in Coldwater Creek.  She is among those diagnosed with cancer at an early age, as well as other diagnoses.  Among other procedures she has undergone, she has had her gallbladder and left adrenal gland removed, and had to have a total hysterectomy. 

      She told lawmakers that the emotional and physical tolls on her and her family have been massive, and the cost at times is so great that she is forced to skip appointments or tests. 

Representatives Richard West and Tricia Byrnes (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“For each one of us here today there are probably 20 back home facing the same challenges or worse.  That’s why I’m asking you to stand with us.  Help ease some of the burden and fight for the medical monitoring and compensation this region deserves,” said Commuso.  “Now is the time for the people and the state to work together.  St. Louis stepped up to save the nation.  Now it’s time the nation stepped up to save St. Louis.”

      Karen Nickel grew up in Hazelwood and played in a park on the bank of Coldwater Creek, and the Creek flooded other local playgrounds and backed into her parents’ basement. 

      “We played in that park.  We ate snow during snowball fights.  We took the honeysuckle off the banks of the Creek and sucked the stuff out of them.  We spent a lot of time there,” said Nickel.  “I am sick.  I have three autoimmune diseases.  I have lupus, psoriatic arthritis, I have Sjogren’s disease,” said Nickel. 

      She and other residents explained that the impacts of this contamination go beyond any one individual.  Some families spend decades trying to keep more than one of their members alive.  The radiation can also cause mutations that put future generations at risk, even when there had been no history of such diseases in those families prior to the contamination. 

      “It’s very fearful for us moms that have grown up in that area when your children are pregnant and about to deliver a child.  I can’t even explain to you the fear that you have when your kids are sick with a simple headache or a stomach ache,” said Nickel.

      Thomas Whelan taught for 30 years at Francis Howell High School, a school that was within walking distance of a uranium processing facility.  He and several others said that as that site was cleaned up students were exposed to particulate matter and other contaminants. 

      “When that plant was imploded … I was there.  We were watching the whole thing go down.  It was like an implosion, and that dust, guess where it went?  A thousand feet away into the playing fields of Francis Howell, into the duct work of Francis Howell, into the air system of Francis Howell,” said Whelan.  “There’s kids still at that school right now and many of those kids are second and third generation Francis Howell students who might, and may not know this, have the altered DNA that they’re going to continue to pass on.”

      “You’re taking the first step,” Whelan told legislators.  “This is going to be one of the biggest environmental cover-ups in U.S. history and we are starting, right now, today, asking you to start that process.” 

      The committee has not voted on those resolutions.

House Budget Committee weighs proposed pay hike for state employees

      The Parson Administration has made its case to the House Budget Committee for a proposed 5.5-percent pay increase for state employees. 

Missouri Budget Director Dan Haug testifies before the House Budget Committee (Photo: Ben Peters, Missouri House Communications)

      The committee heard from the administration’s budget director, Dan Haug, who outlined the motivation for the plan that would cost about $72-million including $41-million in general revenue.  It would set state employee pay at a minimum of $15 an hour and kick in February 1, if it can get through the legislature by then.

      Haug said Missouri must do something to respond to recent and rapid changes in the labor market. 

      “We’re getting to the point where if we have more vacancies and more turnovers we’re not going to be able to operate our state facilities,” said Haug.  He said some facilities with minimum staffing requirements, such as prisons and mental health facilities, have resorted to forced overtime to fill shifts. 

      “That’s not the way we want to run the state,” said Haug. 

      Haug said one reason for proposing a February 1 start date is that a stipend being paid out of federal money to state employees in some institutions came to an end at the end of December.   

“We feel like if we wait until July 1, which is typically when we would do a pay increase, when the new fiscal year starts, then we’re just going to keep bleeding employees and we’re going to get to those critical numbers where we don’t have enough employees to safely operate our correctional institutions and our mental health institutions and provide the quality of services that the citizens of this state deserve,” Haug said. 

“We’re just responding to the wage market that is out there.  We are trying to figure out what a market wage is that’s going to let us be competitive.  We’re not trying to set the market.  Honestly we’re not even trying to get to the middle of the market.  We’re just trying to get somewhere where we can be competitive and get people in and keep our good people,” said Haug. 

Most lawmakers seemed to agree with the desire to increase state employee pay.

“Let’s face it:  we’re in competition with McDonald’s right now, so obviously something has to break there, without a doubt,” said Representative Don Mayhew (R-Crocker).   

      Excelsior Springs Republican Doug Richey agrees, but he has an issue with setting a new minimum baseline of $15 per hour for state employees’ pay.  He said given existing pay structures that could set the income of some new state hires too close to the level of pay of long-term employees.

      “Creating an arbitrary baseline prevents us from being able to be responsive to the market, as well as sends an unintended message that would be somewhat negative to those … who have been working for two decades,” said Richey.  “You can work for 20 years in your job, have tremendous institutional memory and ability, but you’re really no different than a part-time custodial worker at 17 years of age with no experience.”     

      “I wanna get away from the $15 an hour because to me that’s just a number.  That’s not what it’s going to take to get people in.  I’m an employer … in unskilled jobs and I can’t get people for $17 an hour, so that $15 an hour is just a number we’re throwing out there and I believe that is for political reasons,” said Representative Richard West (R-Wentzville)“Let’s do realistic and what’s it going to take to hire?  For one department it may require 15, for another department it may require 18, for another department it may require 22.”

The Missouri House Budget Committee takes testimony from Missouri Budget Director Dan Haug (Photo: Mike Lear, Missouri House Communications)

      Many legislative budget makers resist using federal funds to support ongoing expenses, like state employee pay.  They refer to it as, “one time money.”  Haug said this proposed pay hike relies only on state funds.

      “Missouri’s revenues are doing very well.  Right now the state’s economy is doing well.  We have more people coming back to work.  Our revenues are coming in very strongly.  They came in very strongly last fiscal year.  The consensus revenue estimate shows strong growth through fiscal year 23,” said Haug.  “Even at a very conservative growth rate of 1.5-percent growth in general revenue we can easily afford this ongoing pay increase.”

      Haug, who has worked with the state’s budget for more than 25 years, said, “I feel very confident that we can afford what we’re doing now and what we’re going to need to do in the future.”

      Other legislators asked whether studies should be done to make sure the state needs the employees it has, or that pay increases would be going to the employees who are most needed or deserving.  Haug said the state has reduced its workforce significantly in the past ten years, and said such an employee pay review could take months, and changes to the labor market necessitate a quick response.  He said state employee turnover in some positions and pay levels has been as high as 55-percent. 

      The committee has not voted on the bill which includes the proposed pay plan, House Bill 3014