Contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Louis office have made headway in removing contaminated soil from the banks of Coldwater Creek and cleaning up contamination near an elementary school, a Corps spokesperson said by email Tuesday.
Contractors for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) program should finish excavating contaminated soil within days, Corps spokesperson Jeremy Idleman said in an email to Exchange Monitor.
“Once completed, they will begin restoration of the creekbank which includes riprap to prevent erosion, replacing the non contaminated soil, and planting native grasses and shrubs,” Idleman said.
Cleanup in the Hazelwood School District, around the shuttered Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Mo. is almost done, Idleman said. The school is near the Coldwater Creek Superfund Site. The areas around the St. Louis Airport were used for decades for above-ground storage of radioactive waste from the Weldon Springs Chemical Plant, which processed uranium for the Manhattan Project.
The creek became contaminated over time from the waste stored near the airport, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) told a congressional hearing in January. Bush and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have been pushing cleanup and federal funding for families affected by closure of the Jana school. The school closed in 2022 after a Boston Chemical Data Corp. study suggested contamination was greater than previously believed.
Restoration will begin in February and end in late spring, Idleman said. The Corps will need to excavate more than 5,100 cubic yards of contaminated material along with 19,500 cubic yards of uncontaminated material to reach the contaminated area. The uncontaminated soil will be used for backfill, he added.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held public meetings, with recordings available on youtube, Jan. 16 in Hazelwood on a technical assistance needs document for the Coldwater Creek Superfund Site in the vicinity of the St. Louis Airport.
