Hawley, Bush Make the Push in Congress To Clean Up Hazelwood Contamination

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Jana Elementary.

U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush (D- St. Louis) and Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley don’t agree on much, but they are expected to introduce similar legislation to make sure Hazelwood Schools are safe from radioactive contamination.

On Tuesday, Josh Hawley introduced the Justice for Jana Elementary Act, a bill to force the cleanup of the shuttered Jana Elementary School and order the United States Army Corps of Engineers to test all Hazelwood School District properties.

"Hazardous radioactive contamination has no place in schools,” the Missouri Republican says in a statement. "Students and parents of Jana Elementary and the Hazelwood School District deserve to know that their schools are safe. Federal authorities created this problem years ago and refused to fix it. Now the federal government must take responsibility and make things right."

Bush is expected to introduce a similar bill in the U.S. House.

The Justice for Jana Elementary Act would:

• Order the Army Corps to establish new remediation goals to clean up Jana Elementary
• Order the corps to test all Hazelwood schools for radioactive contaminants
• Create a fund to permit towns with schools affected by Manhattan Project-era atomic programs to request financial assistance for radioactive testing or construction of new school facilities, with financial aid not to exceed $20 million per school
• Order the U.S. Department of Energy to review all testing performed at Jana Elementary and determine if the testing was reliable.

Ashley Bernaugh, the president of the Jana Parent-Teacher Association, says she was pleased by Hawley’s bill.

“They’ll finally have the tools to do right by Jana and any other school harmed by the Department of Energy,” Bernaugh says.

The Hazelwood School District Board of Education ordered the closure of Jana, located in Florissant, in mid-October after a private company detected what it described as toxic levels of radioactive particles in the building and surrounding soil. The board later approved a controversial plan to disperse the nearly 400 Jana students and staff among five other Hazelwood schools beginning in late November. 

Confusion followed in November, when follow-up testing performed by both the Army Corps of Engineers and a school contractor, SCI Engineering, indicated Jana is safe. But SCI Engineering also recommended Hazelwood test all of its buildings for contamination after finding out that dirt from Jana was used as fill material on a football field at Hazelwood Central.

In December, the Hazelwood school board voted unanimously to ask the Army Corps to test nearly 30 district schools and support buildings, and the land surrounding them, for radioactive waste particles emanating from north county dump sites linked to America’s nuclear weapons programs in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

In addition, the board resolution asks all local, state and federal lawmakers to pressure the federal government to pay for all testing and cleanup costs if necessary.

So far the Army Corps has not responded to the school board’s request, instead directing the board’s concerns to the U.S. Department of Energy, which has also been silent.

The board ordered Jana shut after a report drafted by a private company, Boston Chemical Data, indicated dangerous levels of radioactive waste both inside the school and on its surrounding soil. The waste emanates from nearby Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated by Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. as part of its nuclear weapons work for the federal government during the 1940s and 1950s.

Mike Fitzgerald can be reached at [email protected].