Missouri Valley in western Iowa is dealing with the environmental fallout of a Cold War missile site that was deactivated more than 60 years ago.
A cleaning solvent called trichloroethene or TCE seeped into the groundwater and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started studying solutions in 2012. The process could take two more years and resident Rick Kohler is among those who questioned the timeline at a recent informational meeting.
“We’re already almost to 2027, and you’re now just getting to do some study about it. I get it, it’s the government, it’s slow, but that doesn’t make us feel any better,” he says. The federal government has provided some property owners with water purification systems, but residents like DeAnn Paul.worry that any level of TCE is too much. “I’ve had two dogs die of cancer. I’ve had a brain tumor removed. I have all sorts of neurological issues. Why did it take so long to tell us,” she asks.
TCE has been linked to cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and other health complications. Project manager Scott Sawyer says federal law restricts how quickly the agency can move “Do you think I want to stand here and say I can’t do that, I can’t do that? That is not my desire at all. I would love to help everybody and get everything done, but I am constrained by the laws that exist. And the laws that exist are there because the people we put there make the laws,” Sawyer says.
The Corps says it’s tested three different treatment methods, each showing some reduction in TCE at the former Atlas D missile site in the Loess Hills of Harrison County.
( By Sheila Brummer, Iowa Pubic Radio)