Hawley bill combines conservative populism with social justice activism
Salena Zito
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FLORISSANT, Missouri — Eleven months ago, an independent contractor working at Jana Elementary reported finding high levels of radioactive dust on the grounds of this North St. Louis County school. Immediately, the students and their parents, a majority of whom are non-white and often economically underprivileged, were sent scrambling to figure out where else the children would be sent to classes.
Within weeks. both Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican United States senator, and Rep. Cory Bush, a St. Louis Democrat, wrote to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that all of the school district properties should be tested by February, and Hawley introduced the “Justice for Jana Elementary Act,” which would hasten testing for radioactivity as well as the cleanup of the premises.
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By April, the Senate passed Hawley’s Justice for Jana Elementary Act, with Bush introducing companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
Hawley said in an interview the bill would review all testing and provide financial assistance to schools affected by radioactive contaminants.
“My first introduction to [a radioactivity problem in the area] was as the state’s attorney general,” Hawley said. “Since then, in talking with the residents of the region, talking with people who have lived there historically, now moved away, and just learning about how widespread it is.”
Hawley said the problem is not contained to just one landfill: “It is the entire creek, it is the second landfill in St. Charles and in the past few years I have uncovered how extensive it is.”
Hawley explained the origin of the problem dates back to the Manhattan Project when the city was one of the major uranium processing sites in the nation.
“What happened was the federal government, when the project was complete and they were finished with the uranium processing, the uranium waste, and all the radioactive material, what they did with it is basically nothing,” he said.
Beginning in the 1940s the atomic weapon waste was left to sit outside in a parking lot.
Hawley said in his research he found photos of it in steel drums where it sat exposed to the elements right next to Coldwater Creek here in Florissant. The school, which opened in 1970, was built on the flood plain of Coldwater Creek — “a creek that was contaminated with radioactive waste from the storage of residue from the production of atomic weapons for over 30 years,” he said.
Hawley said the neighborhoods that run along Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis are working-class — post-World War II, they were returning GIs and their new families.
“Over the years, the demographic composition has changed,” Hawley said. “Now, many of those communities are majority African-American, but it’s mixed demographically, but always working class. So these are people who, they work hard … They’re not rich people, they are people who are just trying to make it, they want to have a good life for their kids, they own their homes, and they love their community.
Then he added, for emphasis: “They also don’t want their kids to be poisoned.”
Hawley said the parents there told him they want their kids to be able to play in the backyard and not be worried about what it’s going to do to them.
“You really have here a cross-section racially, demographically of working-class people who are just playing by the rules, minding their own business, and their government is poisoning them, and that is wrong,” he said.
Hawley said the problem isn’t limited to here. “The bottom line is we have multiple sites throughout the entire St. Louis region and surrounding areas of nuclear waste that is negligently disposed of by the federal government and we’ve got decades of the government lying about it,” he said.
Hawley said what frustrates him most is that the people impacted by all of this are the people who have the least political power, voice, and influence in Washington.
“That is why they have been so badly treated and the government has done this to them for 60, 70 years, is that nobody speaks up for them — they aren’t big fat donors, they don’t have all the lobbyists scurrying around the Capitol handing out favors, so the government takes then for granted, and frankly, so do a lot of political leaders,” he said.
“We are past the point of asking for this or that from the government, the government needs to clean this up and they need to pay the medical bills of the people who’ve gotten sick and to pay the survivor benefits of the people who have been lost,” he added. “And we’re talking about a lot of people who are sick or who have been lost over these years.”
The decision to close Jana Elementary had another effect: It broke up the community by scattering children who had been together since first entering school into five different schools in the district, a decision that shattered a sense of place in this tight-knit community.
Hawley said his bill is in the sweet spot where conservative populism and social justice activism meet and accomplish something.
“This effort cuts across party lines. To me, honoring working people, respecting them, getting them what they need and deserve and what is due them. This has nothing to do with party, all you have to do is look at who my principal co-sponsor in the Senate is and that is Ben Ray Lujan from New Mexico,” he said of the Democrat.
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“Why? Because he’s facing a similar set of issues in New Mexico — for him, it’s Native American tribes. For him, it’s uranium mine workers. But the common thread is it’s working people who have been taken advantage of by their own government or by big corporations,” he said.
Hawley said this bill is about standing up and saying, “You’re not going to steamroll them anymore. We’re going to stand up and give these people a voice and get them what they deserve.”