Global Justice Ecology Project

MEDIA ALERT

February 23, 2022

CONTACT: Steve Taylor

(314) 210-1322   st***@gl******************.org

Co-Founder of Just Moms STL Dawn Chapman: EPA has Stalled in Promise to Address Radiation in Smoldering Landfill

Representatives “going in hot” to meet with EPA today, says Chapman

St. Louis, MO–Co-Founder of Just Moms STL Dawn Chapman tells Breaking Green in an exclusive interview that the EPA is now signaling that there is no clear schedule to clean up radioactive waste in a Bridgeton, MO landfill. The landfill, which is releasing radioactive pollution due to an underground fire in the landfill, was highlighted in the HBO documentary Atomic Homefront. The waste was generated in St. Louis when weapons-grade uranium was refined for use in the top-secret Manhattan project that produced the first atomic bomb.

In 2019, the EPA agreed to remediate the site after Chapman and her group campaigned to protect their community from radiation that was placed in the landfill nearly 50 years ago. Just Moms STL launched the campaign for the long overdue cleanup in 2013.

During the Breaking Green interview, Chapman discusses unusually high incidents of sickness and death in her community and how they have been told to be prepared to shelter in place if the underground fire reaches dense regions of radioactivity.

Chapman told Breaking Green that the group will be traveling to Lexana, Kansas today, to the EPA’s Region Seven Office, to demand answers.

“We are going in hot,” said Dawn Chapman.

The interview may be heard on Breaking Green, a podcast by Global Justice Ecology Project.

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