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Protesters arrested in Jefferson City march about Missouri crime bill

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Eight protesters have been arrested during a demonstration today in Jefferson City. They marched from the Missouri Capitol to the Governor’s Mansion and along a main street in the city’s downtown to rally against a crime bill at the center of the state Legislature’s special session.

The demonstration was made up of about 40 participants, including state Representative Rasheen Aldridge, D-St. Louis. Protesters were seen on video blocking a roadway. Several police officers were on the scene to direct the crowd and some reportedly used pepper spray on protesters.

The governor wants lawmakers to pass a plan to fight the state’s increasing violent crime rate, including provisions that could prosecute some children as adults for certain crimes, create a witness protection fund and remove a residency requirement to help recruit more St. Louis police officers.

Protesters says Gov. Mike Parson’s efforts will further criminalize the community. They say the governor is “intentionally ignoring” the root issues of crime and the legislature should be focused on providing more funding to address mental health problems.

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Missouri House passes bill that could let private and religious schools cut minimum wage worker pay

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In 2018, Missouri voters gave their blessing to incrementally raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2023. The state House has passed a bill that would exempt private and religious school workers from the state’s minimum wage law. The proposal would open the door for these schools to reduce the pay of hourly wage workers, including some bus drivers, teacher aides, and janitors.

Rep. Tim Remole, R-Excello

Excello Republican State Representative Tim Remole, who’s sponsoring the bill, says the minimum wage law is putting a real strain on these schools.

“Because of the new law, many could be threatened to even stay in existence,” he says. “They have put building processes and plans on hold because of the minimum wage. I have private schools in my district that have had a lot of increases in some of their tuitions.”

Under current law, public school hourly wage workers are already exempt from the law. Remole says his bill would level the playing field between public and private school workers.

Representative Doug Beck, D-Affton, says the legislation could allow these schools to reduce the pay of hourly workers by 25%.

“If we give the employer, in this case, the ability to take away $2.25 an hour from these employees, how many more of them are going to be on state assistance,” asks Beck.

Representative Rasheen Aldridge, D-St. Louis, says he was a low-wage worker once upon a time and knows how it feels.

“This bill is essentially telling them that they’re less than anybody else when they’re already struggling to try to get by,” he says.

Remole is in his eighth and final year in the Missouri House, and represents northern Missouri’s Randolph, Macon and Linn counties.

House Bill 1559 is headed to the Senate.

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New legislative caucus to focus on Missouri’s radioactive waste problems

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A new bipartisan caucus has been rolled out to track information and cleanup efforts about places in Missouri with nuclear waste.

For years, many St. Louis County residents near Coldwater Creek have reported a number of health problems, including cancer, autoimmune disease, children born with deformities and some cannot have children. They say World War II era nuclear weapons waste and underground fire fumes from a nearby landfill are contaminating the ground, air, and water.

New legislative caucus to focus on Missouri’s radioactive waste problems

The Environmental Protection Agency is forming a plan to dig up and remove radioactive material posing a public health threat at the West Lake Landfill in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton. The plan calls for excavating about 70% of the contaminated waste and permanently capping the site. That percentage is expected to increase as crews begins digging. Work is not expected to begin there for about another 18 months.

EPA officials are scheduled to meet in about two weeks with local members of Congress and the community. The hope is to have a start date on the work during that meeting or shortly after.

During a press conference today at the Missouri Capitol, Chairman Doug Clemens, a St. Ann Democrat, says the turning point for him to form the caucus came when he saw copies of a report in recycle bins at the Capitol detailing Missouri’s radioactive waste sites. He says the launching the caucus is a big step in holding the federal government accountable.

“No one knew what they were. We need a body that provides institutional memory after Representative Chappelle-Nadal is gone, after I’m gone. We need somebody else who understands the situation to be able to sit on top of federal government oversight and possibly design legislation if need be,” says Clemens.

He says the feds have not been good about letting residents know what lies beneath.

“We have backyards in north St. Louis County, which have this stuff in it, right there next to somebody’s house. They haven’t cleaned them up yet,” he says. “One of the things that we need to combat here is ignorance about the situation – just letting people know. There’s more to this than what appears on the surface or what we’ve heard about.”

Clemens says the group wants the U.S. Department of Energy to get a budget increase or reallocate funds to Missouri to cleanup these sites sooner.

Representative Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a Democrat from University City, whose district includes St. Louis County, has been raising these concerns for years.

“In my investigatory work, I have found other landfills that have nuclear legacy waste in them,” she says. “One of those places – there is an Amazon distribution center sitting right on top of it today.”

Chappelle-Nadal is sponsoring House Bill 2225 this session that would require public hearings to be held prior to building on top of a landfill, to determine if testing for radioactive materials should be done. Testing would have to be conducted before a land use permit could be issued. The measure would also require St. Louis County to compile and keep a list of historic landfills in the county and make the list available to the public.

Chappelle-Nadal has held numerous town halls about radioactive contamination problems in her area and has learned a great deal of information from citizens about the history of nuclear waste sites, health problems area residents are having, among many other things.

As a young girl, she remembers going down St. Louis Avenue and seeing nice, new houses.

“Little did I know, until a couple of years ago, that the reason why these homes are experiencing subsidence, is because there is a landfill underneath them. I don’t think it’s right that people are living on top of landfills,” she says.

Another related measure that has been filed this year would strongly urge the U.S. Army to explain chemical testing that occurred in St. Louis in the 1950s and 1960s. Representative Kevin Windham’s proposed resolution, HCR 69, would request the federal government to conduct a study on the health effects of such tests.

Other caucus members include:

Co-Chair: Justin Hill, R-Lake St. Louis
Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-O’Fallon
Tommie Pierson, Jr., D-St. Louis
LaDonna Appelbaum, D-St. Louis
Kevin Windham, D-Hillsdale
Adam Schnelting, R-St. Charles
Keri Ingle, D-Lee’s Summit
Mark Sharp, D-Kansas City
Ashley Bland Manlove, D-Kansas City
Paula Brown, D-Hazelwood
Rasheen Aldridge, D-St. Louis
LaKeySha Bosley, D-St. Louis
Alan Green, D-Florissant
Alan Gray, D-Black Jack
Jay Mosley, D-Florissant
Gretchen Bangert, D-Florissant
Raychel Proudie, D-Ferguson
Chris Carter, D-St. Louis

View reports associated with St. Louis County nuclear waste contamination:

63043 is the zip code next to West Lake Landfill referenced in the link directly below with elevated childhood brain cancers.

https://health.mo.gov/living/healthcondiseases/chronic/cancer/pdf/ccanalysisSept2014.pdf

https://health.mo.gov/living/environment/bridgeton/pdf/bridgeton-healthconsult.pdf

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/coldWaterCreek/St_Louis_Airport_Site_Hazelwood_InterimSto_PHA-508.pdf

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