Weldon Spring—A Witness to the Dark History of Science
How has the human relation to radioactivity changed since its discovery in the late nineteenth century? By examining the history of the radioactive disposal ground in Weldon Spring, Missouri, physicist Irka Hajdas traces the contentious and altering awareness around radioactivity in the United States.
Becquerel and Curie are family names which were passed from generation to generation, as were other names. To our generation and generations to come, however, Becquerel and Curie are more than just names; they are also synonyms of radioactivity. One must say that, nowadays, radioactivity is considered to be dangerous. It was not always so. The discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by Becquerel marked a new era in the history of humanity. In the early twentieth century, this natural phenomenon fascinated people and was considered to be of potential benefit to the human race. Indeed, science and medicine profited widely from the understanding of radioactivity. The best examples are in geochronology and the use of radioactive isotopes as tracers in biomedical studies. However, these first innocent decades ended with the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The frightening power of radioactivity manipulated by humankind began to sink into people’s minds.
In July 1955 Bertrand Russell and other distinguished scientists including Albert Einstein published a Manifesto calling for a global commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.1
The efforts continued since that date, but unfortunately, the vision of another near-escalation, such as the Cuban crises of 1962, still cannot be ruled out. The trauma of nuclear disaster has been multiplied and has extended to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, after accidents such as Chernobyl (1986) or Fukushima (2011). The degree of societal fear is also mirrored in national programs to deal with nuclear disposal, in the difficulties they experience finding locations suitable for the storage of radioactive waste. As a physicist who measured Caesium (Cs)-137 in mushrooms and milk contaminated by fallout from Chernobyl in Poland, I can recollect these anxious days. However, when I think about it now, the biggest issue back then was the covert actions of the Soviet government.
Stairway to an observation platform atop the permanent disposal cell at the Weldon Spring cleanup site CC BY 4.0
In 2019, with surprise, I learn about the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works (WSOW). The site was a U.S. Government-owned, contractor-operated facility, which was fundamental to the Manhattan Project and development of nuclear weapons. The first tests on the feasibility of the nuclear chain reaction, which requires pure uranium, were performed by Enrico Fermi’s group at the University of Chicago. That very first load of pure uranium was shipped to Chicago from St. Louis by Mallinckrodt & Co., a pharmaceutical company owned by German émigrés, which accepted a governmental contract for the purification of uranium. From 1942 to 1957 the company purified 50,000 tons of uranium, which were then shipped to other facilities in the United States for further processing and the production of weapons. At the time, scientists and leaders of the project knew of the long-term radiation risk, but there was seemingly no such awareness among the people working at the company who were exposed to the radiation. However, after the Second World War the company introduced dosimeters, which later allowed the transfer and protection of the most exposed workers. In 1957, when fulfilling new safety measures became too difficult at the old company, the purification of uranium ceased at St. Louis and production moved to the newly built Weldon Spring site in Missouri. At that point the radioactive waste was left behind. Recently in 2019, the St. Louis radio reported that after twenty years of cleaning by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the radioactive waste is close to being . A similar fate awaited the Weldon Spring site. After ten years the factory closed, but the waste that was produced remained there. There is a vast literature on the work by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring the contamination of water and soil. From the OSTI technical report published in 1986, which estimated the historic dose received by populations near the site, one can learn that cleaning of the site took place from 1967 to 1969. Then, the period 1969 to 1982 is described as one of “maintenance.”2
The IAEA reports from the 1980s and ’90s indicate monitoring of the environment and assessment of health risks.3 These reports provide some insight into the state and degree of contamination.4 This was not only radioactive waste, but from 1941 to 1946 the U.S. Department of the Army used the Weldon Spring site to produce dinitrotoluene (DNT) and trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives. Between 1941 and 1969, four raffinate pits and a limestone quarry were used for the disposal of chemicals, radioactive waste, and also some contaminated rubble. In the following decade, when environmental issues became part of the national policy, the site was listed on the National Priorities List of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In the 1980s, two parts of the original WSOW property were placed on the list of Superfund sites that required substantial cleanup. The preparatory process started in 1986 and the whole process of cleaning and placing the contaminants in the disposal cell was completed in 2001. The Interpretive Center located on the disposal cell provides online tours to the past of this place. From a link to the history of the Weldon Spring site we learn that production of another murderous weapon, “Agent Orange,” was planned in the late 1960s.5 Fortunately, it did not come to this, as the Vietnam War finally came to an end. The remains of the nuclear past at Weldon Spring appear to be buried now. How well they are buried is of importance to the local community and will probably remain as such for many centuries or even millennia to come. It is a story of one site, but there were thousands more across the United States and indeed across the globe. They all carry the signal of artificially enhanced radioactivity, an unmistakable marker of human activity.
