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Residents panic as atomic bomb waste is discovered under homes in midwest city.
The legacy of America's nuclear weapons program continues to haunt communities across the United States decades after World War 2.
Known as the Manhattan Project, the development of atomic weapons during the 1940s required uranium processing facilities, testing grounds, and storage sites scattered across the country. Much of the radioactive waste from these operations was improperly stored, creating contamination problems that still persist today.
Now, a disturbing discovery in the Midwest has brought these lingering dangers back into focus.
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A 2025 Harvard study found that individuals who lived near Coldwater Creek (where the contamination spread) during childhood face an increased cancer risk from prolonged exposure to contaminated water.
Six families in Florissant, a city in St. Louis County, have been ordered to evacuate their properties after officials discovered radioactive waste from atomic bomb production buried beneath their properties.
They will reportedly receive compensation covering the value of their homes, funds to pay off their mortgages, and additional money to help purchase new properties.
One Florissant mother - who asked to remain anonymous - said the contamination was never disclosed to her before closing.
"Thank God I don't have cancer, but what about the mental anguish for the last few years?" she said.
During World War II, St. Louis hosted several uranium processing operations, including the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works facility that refined uranium for nuclear weapons. These plants produced massive quantities of radioactive waste with few disposal regulations.
Much of this waste was simply dumped at various locations throughout the metropolitan area, including residential zones.
The Harvard study documented various types of cancers, such as leukaemia, thyroid, breast, and colon cancers, that are consistent with the radiation exposure in Coldwater Creek.
"Children living near Coldwater Creek from the 1940s to the 1960s had a 44 percent higher risk of cancer compared with those living more than 12 miles away," said lead author Michael Leung, a postdoctoral fellow in environmental health.
But the contamination extends far beyond St Louis.
"The Hanford site is the nation's most complex nuclear cleanup challenge, with numerous sources of environmental contamination," the Department of Energy described.
In 2003, a health survey involving 801 people living near Hanford revealed higher-than-average rates of brain tumours and reproductive cancers among those living downwind of the plutonium plant.
Los Alamos, New Mexico also faces severe contamination issues, with plutonium levels in Acid Canyon matching those found near Chernobyl.
"What I found here in Acid Canyon is pretty much the most extreme plutonium contamination scenario[…] in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting that I've ever seen in my career," added Michael Ketterer, a scientist involved in the research.
