Coldwater Creek Toxic Contamination

“What we are seeing now is an environmental health disaster, slowly unfolding, as a result of poor management many decades ago.” – Faisal Khan, St. Louis County Public Health Department, September 2015

ATTENTION: TORHOERMAN LAW IS NO LONGER ACCEPTING NEW CLIENTS IN THE COLDWATER CREEK LAWSUIT.

It certainly looked innocent enough, a creek running through a Missouri town located near soccer fields, golf courses, and schools.

It was beloved by the neighbors and the children that enjoyed their summer swims.

But, the secrets that Coldwater Creek MO held for many years have come to light and the injuries that arose from it are staggering.

The legacy of nuclear waste in the St. Louis area began when Mallinckrodt Chemical Works (which is now Covidien Pharmaceuticals) was invited to prepare refined uranium for secret work on a war project.

Mallinckrodt became the sole supplier for the Manhattan project experiments and then continued to be a leader in the field of uranium ore refining during and after World War II.

When Mallinckrodt’s downtown site ran out of space to store its radioactive waste, it was transported to a site at Lambert International Airport to be stored in bulk on the open ground.

Thereafter, the radioactive waste was transported from the Airport site to another site on Latty Avenue in Hazelwood, MO.

Sadly, we now understand that the storage, handling, and transportation spread the radioactive waste along the haul routes, contaminating the nearby properties including Coldwater Creek MO.

Residents of communities bordering along Coldwater Creek MO thought nothing of their proximity to the uranium dumpsite and had assumed they had only historical connections to uranium.

But some perceptive graduates of McCluer North High School dug a little deeper into the unfortunate number of strange health problems that seemed to plague their hometown.

With the help of Facebook and other social media tools, these perceptive residents believed there may be a pattern to the “cancer cluster” surrounding Coldwater Creek MO – this was just the beginning of an impressively organized community effort to learn the truth behind their Coldwater Creek MO.

Residents of the communities bordering along Coldwater Creek MO, including Florissant, Hazelwood, Black Jack, Spanish Lake, St. Ann, Berkeley, and Ferguson continue their advocacy on behalf of those injured in their neighborhoods and have since filed lawsuits on behalf of those injured.

There are a lot of resources available to you thanks to the hard work of community activists.

Below are just a four (4) of those resources:

1. Facebook Page – One of the most amazing parts of this story is the way in which Coldwater Creeks jumped into action when they recognized many cancer diagnoses in their hometowns. Coldwater Creek – Just the Facts Facebook page has acted as a hub for all activities relating to Coldwater Creek.
2. Coldwater Creek Facts – An amazing site that contains all the research/tools that have been developed by a group of former and current residents of North St. Louis County. Of note is the “Illness Survey” that has been used to track diseases of current and former residents and the “Health Map” that was developed as a result of the Illness survey results.
3. Coldwater Creek Lawsuit – Just the Facts Blog – Although no longer living in the area, the Author, Amy Schroeder Ireland grew up in Florissant, MO and still has family in the area. Amy is a lawyer and has been tracking the litigation diligently. She is not linked to any of the lawyers involved in the litigation but gives readers a “plain English” explanation of the legal events.
4. Coldwater Creek Twitter Feed – Follow and share news of Coldwater Creek via the @CWCreekFacts Twitter feed and be sure to use the relevant hashtags to get information shared in the publicly – #ColdwatercreekSTL, #ManhattanProject, #radiationexposure, #downwinders

If you have any questions about a toxic exposure lawsuit, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

• St. Louis Burning: America’s Atomic Legacy Haunts City, Aljazeera America, by Ryan Schuessler – April 29, 2015 (Part 1 of a 3 part series)
• St. Louis Burning: What Killed The Babies Near Weldon Spring?, Aljazeera America, by Ryan Schuessler – April 30, 2015 (Part 2 of a 3 part series)
• St. Louis Burning: A Ticking Time Bomb Beneath the City?, Aljazeera America, by Ryan Schuessler – May 1, 2015 (Part 3 of a 3 part series)
• Russian Times Coverage – October 21, 2015 – Missouri Community Says Rise in Cancer Linked to Radioactive Waste Exposure

In 2017, HBO released a documentary covering the events and the current battle between North St. Louis residents and the named defendants.

Atomic Homefront quickly gained popularity and brought national recognition to this case.