The long-term effects of nuclear waste in St. Louis

On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

WBUR

News, On Point, Npr, Talk Show, Daily

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For decades, kids in St. Louis County caught crawdads in Coldwater Creek, made mudpies, went swimming -- and were exposed to nuclear waste. Hear the story of how St. Louis became a dumping ground for radioactive waste generated by the Manhattan Project.

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Transcript

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0:42.3	Debbie Mason had a typical childhood in Florissant, Missouri, a house and a yard she played in with her three sisters.
0:50.3	The house was unremarkable and therefore perfect. A single story red brick affair with
0:56.7	white trim and a screened-in porch where the family often ate meals. And behind the house,
1:02.3	there was a creek. We had a tree house down there, a tree swing. We were always down in the creek.
1:08.4	We were splashing in the water. and we played down there a lot.
1:14.0	You know, we were kids. It was great down there.
1:17.7	The sisters loved the creek so much. They even played there in the winter.
1:22.4	We would attempt to walk on what we thought was frozen ice, but it was not, and my sister fell in.
1:30.2	And we got in trouble because we weren't supposed to be walking on the frozen creek.
1:35.2	Well, that beloved creek has a name. It's called Coldwater Creek, and it winds through
1:40.5	North St. Louis County. After a couple of years, her family relocated to California.
1:46.3	The sisters grew up, moved out, got jobs, started families.
1:50.5	And then Debbie and her sisters started getting sick.
1:55.0	My middle sister, Denise, got breast cancer in 2010.
2:08.7	She was stage 3. She was 45. Then my youngest sister got breast cancer in 2017 and she was 48. She didn't have any cancer in her lymph nodes. I was the last to get it. I got it in 2020. I was
2:23.8	stage two and I had two lymph nodes removed. So I did 36 rounds of radiation. And I opted for a double mastectomy because of my sisters having cancer.
	...

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