The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) this week confirmed a 2018 finding that exposure to contaminants from former radioactive waste storage near St. Louis, Mo., could have heightened the risk for various cancers among residents of the area.
The ATSDR on Tuesday issued its final report on cancer risks near Coldwater Creek, after releasing a draft version for comments in June 2018. The study was initiated at the request of area residents.
Located in north St. Louis County, Coldwater Creek was contaminated by residues from upstream storage of radiological waste from uranium and radium extraction operations in St. Louis during the World War II Manhattan Project. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) is charged with remediation of those properties.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry identified a potential greater danger for lung cancer, bone cancer, and leukemia among people who played in and around the creek or lived in its floodplain from the 1960s to 1990s. Daily exposures from the 2000s forward created a slightly greater danger of lung cancer, the report says. However, those heightened cancer risks are not likely to produce identifiably higher rates throughout the community, according to ATSDR, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The ATSDR did not recommend general disease screening for former or current residents of the area. “The predicted increases in the number of cancer cases from exposures are small, and no method exists to link a particular cancer with this exposure,” the agency said, adding that the risk could be connected to separate exposure pathways.
The report recommends that residents who might have been exposed to radiological contaminants make sure their doctors know this is part of their medical history, and receive medical consultation of they face new symptoms. The state should also look at refreshing its analyses of cancer incidence, cancer deaths, and birth defects, ATSDR said.
