Companies and others responsible for some of America’s most toxic waste sites are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation, a Reuters investigation found. A Missouri neighborhood’s tale.
By JAIMI DOWDELL, M.B. PELL, BENJAMIN LESSER, MICHELLE CONLIN, PHOEBE QUINTON and WAYLON CUNNINGHAM
Filed Aug. 7, 2024, 11 a.m. GMT
Link to Article
Message from Just Moms STL –
****IMPORTANT****This is the most important and upsetting story ever written about West Lake Landfill
Karen and I are absolutely DISGUSTED by so much that was uncovered in this article. The authors have spent two years on this in order to get to the bottom of the full extent of harm the Department of Energy did to this community!
Make no mistake – there is one “bad guy” here and it is our own Department of Energy who has continued for decades to bully and manipulate EPA and ATSDR by downplaying the need for accurate, current and expanded testing on and off of all of these sites in St. Louis. We will be asking for a high level meeting with EPA officials in DC to discuss their comments in this article! We will also be doing a live later. Besides the heartbreaking stories of illnesses heroically told, the use of FAULTY EQUIPMENT to take air samples under the nose of an agency whose purpose and mission is to protect us is…..
-“The Reuters review of 428 agency reports found the agency commonly cites outdated data and often lacks adequate air, water, and soil samples. In 83 reports, the agency-based assurances of no harm on studies, samples, or equipment it admitted were flawed. This includes its West Lake Landfill report. Despite acknowledging the use of faulty equipment to collect air samples, the report said those samples showed no radiation leaving the site.” (FLAWED EQUIPMENT)
“The lack of accurate and current information makes it difficult to reach definitive conclusions about health risks, more than a dozen independent scientists told Reuters.
“The methods they use and assumptions they apply often result in studies that find no effect,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at the George Washington University School of Public Health.”