During fiscal 2023 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released three reports from “extensive sampling and testing” around the closed Jana Elementary School near St. Louis and the Coldwater Creek Superfund area and “no known data exists that indicates any radiological concern,” at the school, according to a recent report.
During the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, “out of an abundance of caution” the Corps also assigned its Army Geospatial Center to provide “additional historical aerial imagery assessments” to identify any Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) contamination, according to the Feb. 6 report on FUSRAP.
A Corps spokesperson recently cited progress on removal of contaminated soil around the Hazelwood School District, where the Jana Elementary School has been closed since 2022 following a report by Marco Kaltofen, PhD, for Boston Chemical Data Corp.
The recent annual report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers devotes several paragraphs to Coldwater Creek and Jana Elementary.
During the last fiscal year, the Corps received $400 million, the most funding ever, earmarked for cleaning up sites associated with the nation’s early nuclear energy program and reached several milestones, according to the report.
The Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) money was used to continue cleanup at 13 sites, carry out ongoing investigations at six sites and do site closeout work at one, according to the annual FUSRAP report.
The report said a remedial investigation was finished for the Niagara Falls Storage Site Vicinity Property H-Prime in Lewiston, N.Y. Elsewhere in New York state, the Army Corps also signed the record of decision for the Guterl Specialty Steel Site in Lockport, and the action memorandum for the Staten Island Warehouse, according to the report.
During the past fiscal year, the Corps disposed of 100,500 cubic yards of contaminated material and released 75 “vicinity properties” for beneficial use, according to the report.
A total of five Army Corps districts from three divisions are working on 21 active FUSRAP sites in eight states, according to the report.
Congress shifted responsibility for FUSRAP cleanups to the Army Corps from DOE in October 1997, according to the report. The idea of moving FUSRAP back to DOE has been floated over the years, most recently by the Joe Biden White House in 2021, but has yet to gain much traction in Congress.
The Army Corps manages FUSRAP sites transferred to it from the DOE Office of Legacy Management. It also coordinates its actions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as state environmental regulators.
