Lesley M. M. Blume, Chloe Shrager
Experts warn that women and children around contaminated sites are particularly vulnerable to health fallout. Cancer rates among women and girls around Coldwater Creek are already “astronomical,” and survival rates are low, says Dawn Chapman (second to right), one of the co-founders of Just Moms STL, a nonprofit that advocates for the cleanup of her community the expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to cover affected areas of St. Louis. In July, the House passed the RECA expansion as part of the reconciliation bill, and residents in the St. Louis region have started receiving radiation exposure compensation this month.
In a May executive order, aimed at ushering in what he described as an “American nuclear renaissance,” President Donald Trump declared moot the science underpinning decades-old radiation exposure standards set by the federal government. Executive Order 14300 directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to conduct a “wholesale revision” of half-a-century of guidance and regulations. In doing so, it considers throwing out the foundational model used by the government to determine exposure limits, and investigates the possibility of loosening the standard on what is considered a “safe” level of radiation exposure for the general public. In a statement to the Bulletin, NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell confirmed that the NRC is reconsidering the standards long relied upon to guide exposure limits.
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