Ep487 Nuclear Forensics

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1:02Check it out for yourself at happy GLP.com. That's happy GLP.com. A happy price for a happier you. Comprehensive medications are not FDA-approved. Electrability required to determine why a licensed provider, individual results may vary, see website for details. Wine and crime contains graphic and explicit content which may not be suitable for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. You are listening to Wine and Crime, the podcast where two friends, Chug Wine, Chat True Crime, and unleash their worst Minnesota accents. Detonate you might say. Oh, it is state fair season here in Minnesota, the great Minnesota, the color. I saw somebody's baby announcement.

2:02It was state fair theme. Oh, cute. Cute. Oh, fucking cute. I support a state fair theme to baby announcement. I think that's adorable. Yeah, I think if your baby announcement is... It's a big curtain, a little curtain. Well, quirky. I'll find it. MPR put it on their Q-sick room earlier today. I officiated my across the street neighbors, clandestine wedding at the state fair. Three years ago? Two years ago? Oh, yeah, they're like pop-up wedding. Yep, and then they went to the giant slide holding a just married side and they made it on the news. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, they got married right across from the giant slide. So happy anniversary, almost. Happy, happy-ish anniversary. We have very similar wedding dates, but theirs is obviously during the state fair. So yeah. Oh, adorable. I did not make it to the Iowa State Fair this year. God, damn it. I didn't make it to the Minnesota State Fair this year either. I've had this conversation now with my husband and one of my best friends about how

3:05the state fair is fine, but it's hot. It is so crowded. It is expensive. It's filthy and you're standing in line all day. And when you have ADHD, that's not always top of the list of sensory experiences. Now, I love the arts and crafts. Buildings, I love seeing all the animals. I love the butter sculptures. I love the flowers. The seed art. Yes, all the like all the arts and crafts stuff. I love it. I will spend hours in there. But if I'm not sad on years where I don't go, I go to the state fair like every couple of years. I went last year for a day and that will last me for a bit. The conditions have to be really optimal. They have to be cut off. They have to be overcast with a cool breeze and not crowded at all.

4:05Right after a big storm maybe. When it's cooler and everyone has already scattered. A few times I've done the state fair preview. And I really like that. So it's like obvious what it is. But it's just the state fair before the state fair is officially open. But it's not not every booth, not like not all the food is there yet. So it is more limited. It's not a full out. It's not a full out, but it's almost everything. And you can actually, it's fun because you can see people like loading in the animals and like loading in some of their stuff still. But like it's pretty much the safe. Most of the bars are open. Wow. But yeah, you just do that. It's way way better. It's way better. Anyway, I'm Amanda. I'm Lucy and I didn't make it to the fair this year. And neither of us made it to the fair this year. But that's okay because this week we have a very special fan pick.

5:06But before we get to it. We're going to continue to chat because I know that it's kind of late to be announcing this. We've been, we're really trying to get ahead on our record. Really trying. My God. Is it impossible? But I, Amanda, me, hello, I'm going to be in the Berkshire's the weekend of September 25th, which I'm super excited about because this is celebrating Josh Hallmark's 10 years of podcasting and we're coming up on our 10 years of podcasting in a few months. I am devastated that I cannot make it to this. I know. This is my cousin's getting married. Margaret. God, Lucy and I have never gotten to go to the Berkshire's together. And we both been like a couple of times. Yep. So this is my year to be at Berkshire Podcast Festival. So it's over the weekend of September 25th in North Adams, Massachusetts. It's going to be three days of podcast events and hangouts. And that includes live shows. I'm going to be participating in a live reading of the carrot and Ellen letters.

6:10I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Tell the people. I've never gotten to play this part before. And I fucking cannot wait. So I'm really excited about that. So much fun. But there will be studio sessions, cocktail parties, wine tastings, Berkshire's activities, and so much more. And it's not just me who is going. It's a it's a rag tag group of podcasters that I'll love each other very much. So Justin and Aaron from Generation Y are going to be there. Patrick Kines and Drew Crime obsessed. Charlie Whirl from Crime Lies. All of our podcasting mom is Charlie Whirl. We love her. Tony Plattis from String and Tell. It's a newer show of hers. Tony's been rocking the podcasting scene for fucking ever. And now she's a super, super successful voice actor. We've had her on GAC before. We love her so much. Obviously the entire Drew Crime bullshit research team. And like more special guests are still kind of being like shoehorned in. So we're going to have so much fun. And I really hope that you guys come. So yeah, I really hope to see a bunch of people there.

7:11I think it's going to be such a fun and cool and intimate and just like rad chill event. I've loved every event that I've ever done up in the Berkshire's. Lucy has to. It's just like such an awesome time. So grab some tickets. I cannot wait. We're going to have a blast. And it really is like it is intimate. Like we'll get to hang out. But it's not like just a live show. Like we'll get to hang out for the weekend. So please, please come. Also leaf peeping. Oh, it's going to be gorgeous. Yeah, it's going to be gorgeous. It's going to be gorgeous. I'm probably going to drive from Boston so I can see my sister. And that drive is just stored in. So I'm really excited. But you can get tickets at www.bothand.fi. So head over to their website. That's www.bothand.fi. Crap some tickets. Come for the weekend. We're going to have the best time. Okay. That's all of our housekeeping at the top here. Our very special fan pick this week is nuclear forensics. And it is brought to us by Amanda Almond

8:13through a combination of happenstances because Lucy wanted to do this topic. So it's a Lucy pick technically. But then within days of Lucy saying she wanted to do this topic, Amanda Almond emailed in for their fan pick and wanted me to cover the case that they chose today. And it was so perfect. So it's very dipitous. Yep. So we're combining a Gals pick because the fan picker just sent a case instead of like a full topic. So nuclear forensics, I both can and can't believe how much I didn't know about what I'm covering today. It's horrifying. But Lucy's going to give us the actual like sciencey nerdy stuff and then I'm going to do a case, right? Yes. Yep. That makes perfect sense. So Amanda Almond said, quote, instead of a shout out or like topic, I'd love to call out the human scum who have dumped slash abandoned, unwanted pets with maybe

9:14an exception for demonic rodents. I implore people to consider the cons even more than the pros when adopting any creature. The honest with yourself about the level of care, maintenance time you're willing to put in to caring for said creature so that it has a good quality of life. I grew up on a country road and the number of pets that would get dumped off out there was absolutely heartbreaking. It's so shocking that people do that as frequently as they do. Yeah, pet dumping is wild. There are certainly other means to disavow yourself of a pet. If needed. Yeah, that may not involve so much cognitive dissonance. Trauma. So yeah, Amanda just wanted to yell at all of us really quick, but wait, righteously. Like that's super fair. Very much allowed, but not related to the fan pick. But thank you, Amanda Almond. And sorry that you saw so many pets being dumped when you were living on a country road.

10:14That really sucks when you were young when you were young yikes. Amanda did also recommend appearing today though. And for our cannabis lovers, it is a strain recommendation that I was assuming is one of their favorites. I believe I have smoked this, but I am going to be honest with you. I was having a conversation during a 420 happy hour with a friend the other day. Hi, Ryan, about how I don't know if I can really tell the difference in like highs based on strain for myself. For me, it's more the environment that I'm in that affects the kind of high that I'm going to have. That said, I definitely have felt a difference between a high that's more in the body than in the mind. Like I can differentiate that. And I don't think it's because these things don't exist. I think it's because I haven't honed or paid enough attention to those subtle differences. It's just like wine tasting and activating those senses.

11:16I haven't put practice into doing that. But I'm always curious like why certain people are drawn to certain strains. So if Amanda Almond wants to let me know why cereal milk, I would love more information. But I use one of my favorite resources, leafle.com to look up the cereal milk strain. It's rated 8.4 with over 700 ratings. So this is obviously like an older, this has been around for a while and people really like it. A classic. It is a hybrid. It's 25% THC. And your top effects should be like a rousal. So they're a little hearts next to that. I think that genuinely means like it might make you a little, feel a little Lucy Goosey, a little horny, like having a couple of drinks and then go in the bar and flirt. Yeah, a little sliding off your chair. A little slider. It'll make you feel relaxed. It'll make you feel giggly. It's like it's a happy, it's a happy strain. And it has some nice flavors on the smoke and on the scent of butter, vanilla, and sweetness.

12:19So this says cereal milk is a hybrid marijuana strain from cookies. Cereal milk is made by crossing wildlife, which is cookies and cherry pie. And snowman, a sativa dominant cookies feno. Cereal milk has a loud flavor with a sweet milk and ice cream nose that will keep you dipping back into your stash. You can expect dense quality nugs dripping with tricombs and a potent high. Okay. So I'm not, I don't have this on hand right now. I actually am smoking something called prison marker at the moment, whose parentage is, I believe pineapple upside down cake and permanent marker. And I am very much enjoying that sensation and it feels like a nice balance between head and body if I'm trying to pay attention to the feelings in my body. But I still feel sharp and happy. And if yeah, so I don't know, I just thought that I think it's interesting to know why people are drawn to certain strains. So email me back and let me know why cereal milk, even though I can sort of understand,

13:23because it sounds really lovely. You're aroused, you're happy. Yeah. Social. I mean, what's not to love? What's not to love? So there you go. That's my wine crime pairing for today. And let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors so we can dive into nuclear forensics. Nuclear forensics. And also why I chose this fucking topic. Yeah. Before Amanda. Roland. Right. Right. Right. Right. All right. All right. You're happy. End of the season is a super, super busy time. The summer is winding down. It's back to school time. Everybody's frazzled. Everybody's running around like crazy. And that is why we are here to talk to you a little bit about something that's going to make your life just easier. And that is thrive cosmetics. This is like your daily go-to reach for for just that quick elevated look that's going to feel more like skincare and not be like a 50 step process. So you can get out the door and get the kids to school. Yeah, you can also feel good about using their products because every product is 100% vegan, cruelty free and made with clean skin living ingredients.

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21:34So anybody who listens to Spooky Little Bitch on Uncorked knows this already, but I went to an oddities. Yes. Expo a couple of weeks ago. Yes, you told me about this on FaceTime. This makes total sense. Continue. I won't go to into it because I want you to go. Go listen. Go listen to it because that's not the only topic of that episode. In 1945 is when the first nuclear bomb was detonated. The Manhattan Project. Yep. Oppenheimer Manhattan Project that kind of junk in New Mexico. In order to detonate the bomb, they had to drop it from a certain height. So they built a steel tower that was like 100 feet tall from which to drop the bomb. Obviously, when it detonated, the steel and all the other things in there, so the measuring systems and instruments and the copper wiring and stuff like that, and the steel structure itself was vaporized.

22:37There's a lot of energy coming off of a nuclear bomb, especially when you're right over it. So all of that stuff gets vaporized and goes up into the mushroom cloud. And then there are just so many extreme conditions that contribute. I'm not explaining this totally accurately, but then yeah, it rains down and mixes with the sand of the desert area. And it makes what is called atomic glass. And it's like greenish. It's really like speckled. I have a photo of it. I'll put it on the drive so it'll be in this episode. But it's slightly radioactive, so I bought a lead pig to put it in. So the green stuff is from the steel structure. And then what's more rare is like a black and a red color. And the red is from the copper wiring of the instruments that were in there. And so you acquired a piece of this. So I acquired a piece of it at the Audities Expo and I have not shut up about it since then.

23:42That's accurate, but I wouldn't either. That is a really wild thing to have in your collection. I brought it to a business meeting yesterday to show it off. It's just in my purse and the lead pig is really heavy. It's also radioactive. My ugly. It's fine. Just all that your child play with it will get to it. Oh my lord. Okay, so that is the backstory of why I put nuclear forensics on the calendar and just fate brought Amanda Almond to our inbox and it just fit like a glove. So here is what I have to tell you. Like all forensic disciplines, there are a lot of different applications for nuclear forensics. I found an article from the Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science that gives a good overview. So that says nuclear forensics is the interdisciplinary branch of forensic science. That deals with the analysis and examination of nuclear or other radioactive materials.

24:44Or of evidence that is contaminated with radio nuclides in the context of legal proceedings and under international or national law related to nuclear security. Far reaching to control and avoid the threat of terrorism posed by illicit trafficking and mismanagement, nuclear and other radioactive materials must be strictly regulated. Thus the goal of nuclear forensic analysis is to discover what radioactive materials were confiscated, how, when and where, they were manufactured and what their intended applications were. Okay. There's a lot, I mean long arms here. There's a lot. So there are kind of three categories of materials that scientists generally look at. So we have pre-detonation nuclear objects. So that would be like, uh, well pre-detonation. So that might be the raw materials. Got it. Pre-detonation nuclear devices, so the weapons, the devices themselves, like assembled,

25:45and also post-detonation nuclear debris. Because of course, after words, there is only debris. Okay. Analysis can require chemical separation of specific isotopes. And as a refresher, isotopes are two or more forms of the same element with the same number of protons, but a different number of neutrons. Totally. And the nucleus is the powerhouse of the cell. It is. It is. But in trying to recreate, slash, re-understand my mindset about the cats and wigs, like concepts that I had for our isotope analysis episode, I just, I couldn't get there. Yeah. Oh, sub-sound. Oh. Oh. Ha, ha, ha, ha. The fog. The fog. The fog. The fog is fucking haunting. Well, when we were talking about like a devastating death, it then just balloons shot us. Yeah. What the fuck? Riverside is wild.

26:47But it's only yours. And I have no idea what setting you have on. I don't know. Yeah. I can barely make a studio when I have to. I don't know where, I don't know what fucking, a cat stepped on walked across my keyboard and now I'm gonna lose you now. And really inappropriate moments. Yeah. And now I have some weird disease where balloons fly out of my head at really inappropriate moments. Thanks a lot. I am not a cat. I am not, I love that video. Okay, so I was trying to remember what the fucking isotope is. And then I put this on the drive because if you want an opportunity to get hives real quick, great. Go look at, I uploaded a copy of the periodic table of elements and it just shot me straight back to 11th grade. Yeah. Miss Walker's chemistry class. Yeah, with this giant poster. I felt itchy.

27:48Like, and you have to memorize all this shit. Oh, I didn't memorize it. Well, you're supposed, I mean, you're supposed to. Yeah, I was supposed to do a lot of things in school. Yeah, yeah. No, that's nuts. Like chemistry and geology were the two like science classes that I too much memorization couldn't do it. Which is weird because now I'm really into rocks. Yeah, but I got a D in that class. Fair enough. Oof. Okay, back to nuclear forensics. So yeah, I don't want to go down that road again of the like hardcore science of it all. So I got fixated on other things. Okay. But before we get there, scientists can also measure the decay of alpha beta and gamma radiation coming off of whatever they're looking at. Do not ask me how. But that's another way they can identify what it is that they're looking at. And if the isotopes in question have a relatively long half-life and they are stable enough, they can use mass spectronomy. Okay.

28:49Again, I will not be taking questions for any of this. It's just how it works. Okay. There is no way to know. A chemistry occurs. Apparently. So in 1944, the US Air Force was trying to gather intelligence about Germany's nuclear program. Because yes, the Nazis were fucking with nukes. Which is horrifying. So a little bit of the history backstory. After World War I, Germany was real fucked up. So the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war, mandated that Germany accepted culpability in the war, that it pays a bunch of reparations, that it gives up a bunch of its territory, and that it totally disarms and demobilizes its military. Yeah. There's a creepy picture also that I have on the drive of the troops demobilizing. Yeah. There's just so many and they... It's just a sea of men just staring. With bayonets. Yeah. Like just listless.

29:50Uh-huh. What do we do now? Soalless. You're the country's... We've been quote unquote just following orders for X amount of years now what? Yeah. Like the weight of everything just settling on their faces. Have fun in Nuremberg. So that on top of the fact that a bunch of its citizens were now dead or disabled. So like the workforce got rocked. Yeah. The country was disillusioned, suffering, it was isolated, like globally, and it was fucking broke. Which I can identify with. Disillusioned, suffering, isolated and broke. Yeah. Tag yourself. However, however, Germany during the war had not sent its smartest citizens to the front lines. Instead, they appointed a lot of like scientists and mathematicians to political roles. Thereby sort of blending politics with technological innovation.

30:52Okay. Which other countries and there are there are kind of theories as to why Germany had like this industrial boom between the world wars. Yeah. But like a lot a lot happened and then I read one article about one of the theories that directly compares it to France and Britain. And like they had just conscripted everyone within a specific age range. Whereas Germany had a much bigger age range that they were picking from. But they exempted a lot of its like professors and university students. And like I said, the smart people. There's still an intellectual boom because they didn't die at war. Correct. Mm-hmm. Were a lot of like probably more blue collar like working class people did die at war. Yes. So there was just a different balance to how they recovered than other countries that don't recruit that way is what you're saying. Yes. So I want to tell you about the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.

31:56It was named after the last German emperor Wilhelm II, Jr. Mm-hmm. So this guy was, you know, go figure a fucking prick. In terms of international relations, he was like a bull in a china shop on like in the global theater. He was just, yeah. Just doing kind of whatever he felt like there were like a lot of crises and scandals during his tenure. This is familiar. Well, it fucking led to World War One. So yeah, that great. He was also besties with Franz Ferdinand. Oh. Okay. So when Franz was assassinated in 1914, Wilhelm was like, okay, okay, we're like we're going to war. And he did, he did his thing. He really fucked shit up. That's a little bit about him. There's obviously a lot. There's a lot more to say about him, but to general background. Okay. So they name this society after him.

32:59The Kaiser Wilhelm, Jess Elchaft. That's the German. He's untie. Bless you. Guten Tag. Guten free. Haba a na cloud, please. Haba a na cloud, please. Jess Elchaft. So the acronym is KWG. So that's probably what I'll be referring to it through the rest of this. But I love your German. Jess Elchaft? Do I have to say? The Kaiser Wilhelm Jess Elchaft. That's founded in 1911. That's more like Austria and I think. Yeah, I think we should stop. Okay. We'll stop. Not, not many accents that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's founded in 1911 as a research institution outside of the university system in order to advance the interests of German state and capital through the development of scientific knowledge relevant to industrial and military application.

34:01Got it. So they had a lot of chemists. They had a lot of physicists. Science nerds, German science nerds. Well, the king of which Albert Einstein was a member at one point. The society and its research institutes were involved in a weapons research experimentation and production in both the first and second world wars. During World War One, the group and in particular, a guy named Fritz Haber was responsible for introducing the use of poison gas as a weapon. Yep. I think I've talked about this guy. I think you have too. Which of course was in direct violation of established international law. So kind of where their mindset was. Another member was a guy named Otto Hahn, who is credited with discovering nuclear fission. Fission. Fission. Go fission. So he's split the atom. If you know about that, don't get pissed off at me yet because we're going to circle back to

35:06Otto Hahn. Okay. Before we get to that, I do want to say one last thing about the KWG just to again give you an idea of the eventual mission and values that it had. This is from Wikipedia. During World War Two, because the KWG wasn't actually dissolved until 1946 after World War Two. So during World War Two, some of the weapons and medical research performed by the KWG was connected to fatal human experimentation on living test subjects, slash prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. In fact, members of the KWG of anthropology, human heredity, and eugenics mm-hmm. So that's a cool department. Fuck it, gross. Particularly a guy named Ottmar von Verfschur received preserved Jewish bodies and body parts such as eyes for study and display from Auschwitz. These were provided by his pupil, Dr. Joseph

36:09Mengele. Mm-hmm. Just a direct line from prisoners in his charge. He specialized in examining twins and their genetic relationship, especially for their eye color and other personal qualities. As the American forces closed in on the relocated KWG, the organization's president Albert Vogler, an industrialist and early Nazi party backer, died by suicide knowing that he would be held accountable for the groups, crimes, and complicity in war crimes. So they knew exactly what they were fucking doing. They absolutely did. And if the coin had flipped the other way and the regime hadn't changed, they would never have quit. No, no. But yeah, what happened in Germany between these world wars was really impactful and fascinating. How all of these conditions just made the exact right environment for this industrial boom and then it led not indirectly to this society, I don't know, it's just

37:14fucking, you know, I just, it's gross. People are fucking gross. Yeah. So in general and aside from the KWG German innovation exploded, like I just said in the period between the wars, for our uncorked book Club this Spring, we read the book Blitzed, which is about meth in the Nazi party. So it was at the time known as Purvetin, but it essentially was one of the main reasons why the Nazis just fucking crushed at the very beginning of World War Two because they were not sleeping, they were not stopping, they were all on meth. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. But like German chemistry had just global impacts for a while, the German language, like all the books and the in the scientific community, everything was either in English, French or German. That's then for a country of that size, that's a really. Yeah, it shows the impact. And I mean, if you read books like Medical Appartide,

38:16it reminds me so much of this because similarly, well, I mean, a playbook was in many ways handed to the Germans from the United States, from like the kind of testing that we did on enslaved Africans and it's and like the apartheid we had in the United States, the racial apartheid. It's just like crazy, the impacts, like that are still very much felt today and like modern medicine that is rooted in some of the biggest atrocities known to fucking man. So reading shit like that and knowing that like I'm on an insulin pump because of like Nazi experimentation. Literally is one of the most fucked up things to grapple with. It's crazy. The more you know, the harder it is to reconcile, y'all. And going back to our book club on our own court for a second, we also read everything is tuberculosis. Yes, you did. And that you have to do the hot zone. So much to do. I come to find out

39:20the hot zone is a little bit problematic. Oh no. I know. It's been so long since I've read it. I know it was fascinating in seventh grade. Yeah. I have to do a little bit more digging. It doesn't in ways that made it made it made a spooky. We wouldn't be sitting here today without probably not the problematic potentially. I will accept that it is problematic and learn more about that. I think the main reason why it was problematic is because a lot of the stuff in there didn't happen or wasn't proven. It was really sensationalized and it spread a lot of misinformation about Ebola. Which is predominantly in Africa. So there's racial connotations to that too. Correct. Yeah. Got it. Makes sense. But yeah, we can't have nice things. The even nonfiction. No, alleged nonfiction. No. But the medical apartheid thing too is very much addressed in everything is tuberculosis as well because the whole thing is centered around

40:20a story of a young man who is suffering from tuberculosis for years and years and years and he's just in and out of hospitals and he lives in Africa. And I don't know. Just the disparity from how we treat and also vaccinate and just have resources in predominantly white countries. Right. Is just I know it's just it's it's really gross. But that's very gross. But the more you do know, you can see the links to all of these things. And I think it's fair to say that obviously Nazi Germany did some atrocious things. Yes. And all the innovation between those the wars coming out of Germany. Absolutely. Had it changed. Had a irrevocable impact on the course of humanity. Yeah. Anyway, just all these all of these threads. I just like reading. I like reading and connecting dots. So oh, also they had like a shit ton of Nobel prize winners come out of. Yeah. That's a lot of Germany at the time as well. Okay. So back to nuclear fission. So this

41:26is the process which often produces neutrons and gamma rays and releases a very large amount of energy. So it's the explosion part of nuclear reaction. Yeah. And it especially releases a large amount of energy when we're doing it to uranium in particular enriched uranium. Uranium 235, which is the only fissile. So like able to be fissioned. Isotope to be found in nature as a primordial nuclei. So we'll get to this more later on. But like uranium is naturally occurring. And also a byproduct like a waste product. A nuclear waste product, right? No, uranium is how is how you get nuclear reactions. You need uranium to create a nuclear whatever you're doing. Got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So while it is naturally occurring, it's usually in like a

42:29like a crude like a crude or like an an ore form or something like that. So then it doesn't have what it takes. Yeah. So then you either find super super pure or I don't know if it's pure, but like I guess in this uranium 235, I don't know if you can even find that in nature or if it has to be enriched. Yeah. Yeah. Enriched. But I will talk about more about that later on. So the guy who quote unquote discovered nuclear fission auto-hon of course he worked with a team which included an Austrian and Swedish nuclear physicist named Elise Meitner. She went by Elise. Okay. And I am giving her her fucking flowers because she deserves them. Okay. So Elise was a professor and a department head at the KWG. So she was at she was a member of that society school, whatever you want to call it. And she was also the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. Okay. Very, very smart. She lost her positions in 1935 because she was Jewish and they kicked her out of Germany.

43:36Damn. And guess who got the Nobel Prize in chemistry for nuclear fission? Auto-hon alone. Yes. Close to other members of his team including Elise. Mm-hmm. According to the Nobel Prize archives, she was nominated 19 times for the Nobel prize in chemistry between 1924 and 1948 and never one and 30 times for the Nobel Prize in physics between 1937 and 1967 and never one. Correct. Despite never never having been awarded the Nobel Prize, Meitner was invited to attend the Lindow Nobel Laureate meeting in 1962. Like, I mean, that's cool but like consolation. Yeah. The most consolation prize. Yeah. She also received many other honors including the posthumous naming of element 109, might nearium. Okay. So they discovered a new element and named it. She named it after her. No, she was already dead. All right. That happened

44:38in 1997. Okay. Yep. Might nearium. But like, yeah. Classic. So I have some pictures of Elise on the drive. If you want to look at her, she just like look at her sleigh in this hat in front of this big-ass plant. Yeah. Yeah. That hat is really fabulous. Yeah. And then there's she's really cute. And then there are two other photos of her in the lab with auto. Mm-hmm. The feel looks like a fucking douche. Yeah. Like the one of them sit like she's looking at the camera and she's looking like down at her. Yeah. He looks like he's looking at her tits. He's like trying to see down her shirt. Her lab. He's probably reading notes. But yeah. I just it looked like it just looked like a condescending it. If this is a representation of their relationship dynamic. Anyway, not to say that it is, but I was angry on her behalf when I read it. That photo was taken five years before Alan was born. Jesus Christ. Time is so laughable. I know. Okay. So Elise discovered nuclear

45:48fission is my story in 1938 and within months the Nazis were into it. Yeah. Just stealing it. Nazi Germany undertook several research programs relating to nuclear technology including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors both before and during World War II. So these programs were variously called Iran Verine, which translates to uranium society or Iran project, which translates to uranium projects. Yeah. That tracks. So like looking at the timeline of like breakthroughs in nuclear energy and also like the development of nuclear forensics. They very much coincide with warfare. Yeah. Well, because the whole reason we're looking for ways to do these things in science is because we want to be able to blow up huge fucking swaths of land. I mean, also just

46:51breakthroughs in like nuclear energy. Full. Sure. Which is not in a self-harmful. Yeah. Yeah. It's not all about the weapons, but it's a lot about the weapons. It's fueled. It's funded by the weapons. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And when we're talking about forensics, we're probably talking about a weapon, but not necessarily because there's like leaks at nuclear power plants and shit all the time. My case is not necessarily like a nuclear bomb went off. It's waste. It's radioactive waste because of the fucking Manhattan project. We get to a little bit more about that too. Yeah. So the Soviets start testing and there are like planes flying all over the place to like over like suspected nuclear testing sites. And they they're trying to like collect dust from the air as they fly over. To examine it, see what they're using. Yeah. So everyone is just trying to figure out how they

47:53can collect evidence that other countries are like testing nukes or developing a nuclear program for whatever reason. British scientists also used unconventional methods for sourcing possible bomb debris. Workers on vacation in Europe were instructed to collect pine cones while they were there to like test them for any kind of dust. And they also ordered crates of tea leaves from China. To test them as well. Yeah. The first seizures of nuclear or otherwise radioactive material were reported in Switzerland and Italy in 1991. And it was then that our lovely topic was born of nuclear forensics. Got it. So not only did they need to figure out what the material was, but how it fucking got there. So I kind of went down a different rabbit hole into nuclear trafficking. Because like yes, governments can obtain it. But there's a lot of black market.

48:58Right. I mean, like I said, uranium is naturally occurring. So people can get it. And there are a lot of smart people who don't work for the government. Okay. So this is from an article from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in January of this year, which I think might have been last year, a nuclear trafficking case made the international news headlines. The United States Department of Justice announced that Takeshi Ebasawa, an alleged Japanese gangster, had pled guilty to charges of major narcotics trafficking as well as conspiring to traffic nuclear materials. Damn. That's big charges. Yeah. The indictment states that Ebasawa believed he was offering the materials, which included uranium and plutonium to representatives of the Iranian government, but they were in fact US agents. They always are. They're always an agent. He claimed to be selling the nuclear material on behalf of a Myanmar rebel group in return for guns. This guy was all over the place.

50:03Damn. Just like Blanche who is running around like a fucking fiend right now. He's got the zoos. Demon. Sorry. That's why I keep like jerking my head around because like he's like running up under my chair and like bucking and then like he's staring away. Oh yeah. He's usually like able to just be out and about when I'm in the office with him. Like, you know, what a psycho. I just can't leave him unattended all the time or he will chew shit. Maybe he got into some pervatin. Maybe. His red eyes are gleaming. Oh god. So then the rest of this article goes on to interview nuclear expert Robert E. Kelly, a veteran of the US nuclear weapons complex nuclear analyst and distinguished associate fellow of the organization that this article came from. So here are some interesting excerpts that I obviously wasn't going to read like the whole thing, but he did. He brought up some like interesting things that kind of clarify a little bit of what we've been talking about.

51:04So what exactly are we talking about here? It's the trafficking of nuclear materials. So broadly speaking, nuclear materials are a small subset of radioactive materials that can be used to produce a nuclear chain reaction or can be bred to produce another to produce other nuclear materials. Yeah. So it's not like somebody is smuggling a bomb, but they're smuggling like the raw materials that could be used to make a bomb. Yes. That's what the materials would indicate. Because again, that's just one of those three buckets that was like pre-detonation materials, pre-detonation weapons, and then post-detonation, whatever, debris. So we're talking about the first bucket. International agreement defines nuclear materials as either special fissile materials. So that would be like the isotopes uranium-235, uranium-233, and all plutonium isotopes. And I think plutonium is a byproduct of like a different nuclear reaction or something. But plutonium is I don't

52:08believe is a naturally occurring thing. Or source material, which would include natural uranium, depleted uranium, and thorium in metal forms, alloys, chemical compounds, or concentrates, but not ores. Okay. Someone out there understood any of that. Great. Okay, so this guy, he goes on to say, I know of no cases so far where trafficked nuclear materials have come close to the minimum amount needed to make a nuclear explosive. Okay. In most of the reported cases, the materials being offered for sale pose little or no risk of nuclear proliferation. So it's like more for people are trapping it more for like study or low level experimentation. There's not enough, they've never uncovered a case. So there's been enough that somebody could have made a nuclear bomb with what they were covered from the bust. Correct. Yes. Okay. Well, that's actually good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we talked about the misinformation

53:09from the from fucking the hot zone. Yeah. I mean, nuclear weapons are horrifying. Yeah. And just absolutely take them seriously. But the average person isn't going to be able to access and stockpile and enough materials to make one is what this guy is saying. And often like in the Ebusawa case, their sting operations where the supposed buyer has been an intelligence or law enforcement agency like the whole time. Right. In fact, government sting operations have created a market. Yep. Yep. This happens all the time. I know. It's so fucking annoying. Go play with something else. Yeah. God. So the next question is media stories about nuclear materials trafficking tend to treat all materials as if they were a major security threat, which can be misleading. As you say, most of the reported attempted trafficking cases involve natural uranium or nuclear source materials. Could these pose a serious proliferation threat if they were trafficked?

54:14And he says practically speaking, the answer is no. Okay. So now we're talking about again, like the natural occurring and like what's actually valuable. Yep. Uranium ore is found in the ground in many parts of the world and has low radioactivity levels. It is not regulated by any security or international atomic energy agency safeguards, accounting procedures until it's been concentrated and refined like a bunch. Because it's naturally occurring and it's kind of everywhere and it's not dangerous in that form. So unless you've like altered it, then it's just dirt. Yes. Basically. So why would we why would we bother regulating dirt? Right. And then yes, he goes on to say, so the amount of uranium ore that someone could seal is virtually unlimited, but it would still not be a serious proliferation risk. Yeah, it wouldn't mean anything unless you had the means to refine it into this other product. Exactly. Got it. Okay. Well, yeah, that is actually that's this is very

55:14good to hear. Well, there's more one term that is often associated with nuclear materials trafficking, especially when it comes to terrorism is dirty bombs. Have you heard of dirty bombs? Not really, but maybe I don't really I don't know. I don't think so. It's like a bomb where the explosion itself is like secondary to what is being released when it explodes. Oh, okay. So the point isn't the size of the explosion. It's disseminating a secondary product, which could that mean like a bioterrorism? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like anthrax or something. Stuffed a bomb full of anthrax and blew it up somewhere. Yeah, it might not destroy that many things, but it would give everybody fucking cancer or whatever. Yeah. So this is that's what a dirty bomb is. Got it. Or more accurately radioactive dispersal devices or RDDs. So I guess the dirty bombs are more applied to radioactive

56:16materials and not necessarily like bioterrorism. I mean, both both could probably be considered a dirty bomb, but you know, nuclear forensics wouldn't be applied to something with with anthrax because that's not a nuclear anything. Product. Yeah. Yeah. So the theory behind dirty bombs is that dangerous material is scattered about using conventional explosives. There is no nuclear reaction just a dispersal of a poisonous or hazardous substance. I don't believe a dirty bomb has ever been used in the real world, but he's talking about that in a nuclear sense. Yep. But they are theoretically possible. When it comes to nuclear materials, plutonium isotopes are a threat when inhaled. And so in powder form, they could be dispersed using an RDD to cause harm. Plutonium would probably be the most likely radioactive dirty bomb possibility. Yeah. So according to the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, more than half of all thefts of nuclear and other radioactive material

57:19reported to the incident and trafficking database since 1993 occurred during authorized transport. Got it. That makes sense. Because how else are you getting this shit unless it's like government agencies that are moving it? Yeah. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. With the share rising to nearly 70% in just the past decade. Damn. The new data released by the IAEA underlines the need for continued vigilance in transport security. Yeah. That would be a scary job. Of the 4,626 reported incidents in that database between 1993 and 2025, 730 of them were thefts of radioactive material, including that included attempted thefts. Damn. Almost 55% of those thefts occurred during transport and in more than 59% of those transport-related cases, which came down to about 400 incidents. The stolen radioactive material was never recovered. Oh good.

58:23So it's floating around out there somewhere. But you know what I think? Maybe this is just because I think that humanity for the most part is relatively stupid. I think it doesn't get recovered because I think people have these big ideas to steal this kind of shit and then they just have no idea what to do with it. And they can't offload it. Yeah. And then they're by a monkey at a black market exactly or something. And then it's like, what the fuck do I do with this thing? Yeah. And so I think stuff just kind of falls through the cracks because it's not ending up in the hands of anybody who can actually use it. And stuff just disappears. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. That doesn't scare me. That actually just kind of makes me laugh where it's like, yeah. Because all these people are like, I've got all this shit. But it's probably like other governments get a hold of it. I was just going to say not all of these impenetrails are random people. I mean, a lot of traffic

59:24shit goes to and from and between full governments. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably the majority of the of this. Yeah. So this is not to say that that missing uranium didn't go straight to to use Israel or somewhere. Right. Right. Or to North Korea. Also there, they have like a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, damn. Yeah. So that's that. I couldn't bring myself to like explain a chemistry occurring. No. I understand that. More background info. No. This was really fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing all that. Yeah. Thanks for riding the journey with me. Yeah. Of course. Hey, we didn't have to go down another cats and wigs rabbit hole. I was totally fine with everything that you just covered. I was like able to keep up with that. More Nazis than wigs this time. I can keep up with with that, the like Nazi history better

1:00:25than I can keep up with what an isotope is. Love it. Love it. All right. Let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and then dive into our fan pick case today. True crime stories can be intriguing and dark, but has your mind ever started generating disturbing thoughts that you don't want to engage with? Maybe thoughts that made you question everything about who you are. That's very scary. Maybe it's a disturbing image that pops out of nowhere, a violent urge that horrifies you or a thought about harming someone you love. Even though they're unwanted, these intrusive thoughts can feel so real and disturbing that you might start to wonder, what does this say about me? What kind of person thinks these things? But the truth is intrusive thoughts like these happen to almost everyone, but for people with OCD, they don't just pass by, they stick and cause intense distress, which drives people to do repetitive, mental or physical actions in an attempt to feel safe or okay. And when you have OCD, you might spend hours analyzing what an unwanted thought could mean, desperately trying to prove to yourself that you're not a bad person. You might feel the urge to confess every little thing, seek reassurance

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1:05:40Okay, so my fan pick case is making a lot more sense to me now that I understand that it was just the case that was sent and not a case under the topic of nuclear forensics because I'm really not talking about nuclear forensics today. It was kind of a potential. Yeah, no, but this makes total sense. Okay, but I am talking about nuclear waste because our fan picker wanted me to talk about the area of cold water creek misery. So I just wanted to note because there's nothing else that's good about this. I used to have a pair of floral cold water creek jeans that I really loved and I think that clothing company has got out of business, but that certainly is not the only thing plaguing this region, which should be obvious considering this is a nuclear forensics episode. So they flared. Why can I make sure I can picture I know you can picture them. I can picture them because I'm in pictures wearing them. I loved them. They were like denim, but that the pattern was also denim. It was like the flowers were a lighter denim against a bluer denim. Like on the

1:06:42back pocket? No, like the whole pant. Really? Yeah, they were cute. Okay. I really like that. I'm seeing them. Yep. I know. Cold water creek. Yeah. Yeah. Google cold water creek floral denim. I googled cold water creek jeans images. Almost all of them have floral on them. They remind me of your wedding veil with the flowers. So all right, he those jeans. I got rid of them years ago because they no longer fit me, but that's fine. They were really cute. I remember those jeans. Yeah, but they were like a barrel leg. They weren't like a tight gene. They were. Yeah. I really liked them. Anyway, I think that cold water creek has gone out of business. RIP. No, they haven't. There's still a functioning. Great. Okay. I love that. Coldwater Creek dot com. If you need another reason not to trust the government or corporations, not just under this current administration, but pretty much ever, then this case is definitely for you. And heads up a lot of my case today comes from a two part CBS news

1:07:45expose by Skylar Henry and Kate Blatt. They did an amazing job covering the like devastation and also the secrecy of this whole thing. So I'll be pulling from that series a lot. It's listed in my sources and I highly recommend giving both parts a read. Okay. So cold water creek is a 19 mile tributary that flows off the Missouri River and winds through miles of neighborhoods. It's like a very residential area. Okay. And this is in Missouri. In Missouri. In like in St. Louis, basically. Oh, okay. It's also highly toxic. Oh, great. So from CBS, quote, starting in 1942, roughly one ton of pure uranium was produced per day in downtown St. Louis by a malencrot or malencrot chemical works. What? Yes. It was then shipped to labs across the country for the top secret Manhattan project that created the first nuclear bomb.

1:08:48Son of a bitch. So like a huge amount of these materials was being produced at these plants at this plant in St. Louis and then shipped out a ton a day. A ton a day. So was this plant refining the uranium to make it my understanding. Okay. That's what I would. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. So the leftover waste was dumped around the city. Cool. Well, yeah. What else are you going to do with it? Right. This gave a perfect little overview. So I just pulled this from Wikipedia. As quote, in 1942, malencrot chemical works reached an exclusive agreement with the United States government's Manhattan engineering district and agency of the US Department of Energy to produce weapons grade uranium at its factory north of downtown St. Louis. From 1947, the company and the United States Army Corps of Engineers used a 21.7 acre property near Lambert Field for the purpose of burying steel drums containing the radioactive waste from the downtown plant

1:09:53and other locations. That site became the St. Louis Airport storage site or slabs. Slabs. Oh no. In 1966, the codder corporation purchased minerals from the malencrot chemical works for refinement. Okay. So they didn't maybe they didn't refine it. It's just the materials. Okay. But I don't know. I I imagine there was both because there's a lot of nuclear waste that's coming out of here. So there had to have been some sub refining going on. Um-hmm. Barium sulfate along with other chemical and radiological extraction products were stored at Laddie Avenue. Additionally, codder corp worked with B&K construction to dry and transport material to Canon City, Colorado. In 1973, when the process of extraction was determined to be unprofitable, the radioactive waste was shipped in uncovered dump trucks to a landfill site on Laddie Avenue in St. Louis. And another, the West Lake landfill in Bridgerton. Material from both the original

1:10:54slap site and from the Laddie site eventually made its way into the creek bed and to many neighboring homes and properties. Yeah. Because I mean, did they even did they bury it or did they just dump it at these landfills with a bunch of bullshit? They did both. And what? They were just dumping it around. Oh my god. Some of it was getting buried. But like, it was flowing into the water, into the groundwater and then into the creek. That's so fucking gross. Yeah. So back to the CBS article, that material was in 82 different spots throughout St. Louis County. It spilled. Children played in it. Oh, it seemed to me that there wasn't an attempt to absolutely get to the bottom of it said Linda Morris, a lifelong resident of cold, the cold water creek area. And now she's like dedicated her life to getting to the bottom of all of this because in Morris's family alone, her mother, father, and brother all died of cancer, leaving her to

1:11:57think differently about her childhood. She remembers playing in nuclear waste. As like in the form of like dirt, I guess. Oh, quote, all that time, all those fun things were happening, but that whole time we and the rest of the community were being exposed to some pretty dangerous stuff. Morris said the neighborhood she lived in was bordered by cold water creek. And yes, they literally played in open leaking nuclear waste that was not only all around the city, but leeching into the water. Oh my god. While she miraculously has avoided cancer, she lost her mother, father, and brother to lymphoma and her husband who is from the area was battling cancer himself as of 2025. They're all. They're all fucked. Wow. A 2019 study from the Department of Health and Human Services found that people who lived and played near cold water creek from the 1960s to the 1990s could be at increased risk of developing lung cancer, bone cancer, and or leukemia. For a casual 30 year window. Yeah, but it's even bigger than that. That's like them making the

1:13:03window a small, they're downplaying the window. I bet. Because this start, this like the dumping of the waste started in the 40s. Yeah, because that was 1940, what's 40 42 or 42 when they first started the Manhattan project. Jesus Christ. Residents simply didn't know the dangers because the company responsible kept their dumping practices secret. Quote, it wasn't until 1989, 43 years after the waste was first dumped that the environmental protection agency, the EPA, classified the area as hazardous. Well, the EPA wasn't even around until the 80s, right? No, it wasn't, but there was also there were other agencies that could have deemed this and unsafe place for people to live. It didn't mean that they didn't have, they knew and we'll get to that. Official said it was dangerously contaminated in order to government cleanup, but by that time more than 60,000 people lived within just one mile of the creek, including Kristen Kamuso. Quote, I had to have a total history

1:14:06act to me. I've been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. They found a new tumor on my remaining adrenal gland said, Kamuso, my remaining adrenal gland, my remaining adrenal gland. Yeah. And she's policy director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. So many of these people who have been affected by this have been like radicalized into activism around this and like careers around this, obviously, and completely shaped their fucking lives. Well, but your whole family dying of cancer is a strong motor. She's different. She's battling cancer. There was another woman, Morris. I'm just imagining that family died, but yeah. I'm imagining that a lot of these people's families have died. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. And there's no like official statistic of the deaths related to this because they don't study that. They don't study like, they've ignored the correlation for so long. Why would we want to address this? Right. That would be really inconvenient and probably very expensive. Yeah. She's been pushing for the remaining

1:15:07ways to be removed for more than 12 years. Quote, I was quite literally laying in my hospital bed and I promised myself that I was going to get better and do something about it. Can we say so said? In December of 1989, the Department of Energy reported that radioactive material was found to be present, quote, in and along the creek. The material was traced to nearby dump sites, both from a common source, the Malancrooke chemical works. That same year, the creek was finalized on the national priorities list of the super fund program from the EPA. The concern was not just for the surrounding area, but also for Malancrooke employees who were still working at the plant with radioactive materials, lacking safety and mitigation, basically until like 2004. Oh my god. When these employees finally became eligible for compensation in Weldon Spring and St. Louis under the employees occupational illness compensation program act or the EEO ICPA. EEO ICPA. Of course, this is a government program for compensation. So the onus was on them, the employees to prove how much

1:16:17exposure they had to radiation while working at the facility. And how are you fucking supposed to do that? In 2006, the EPA proposed cleanup plans for two parts of the site, operable unit one or OU one, which includes areas contaminated with radioactive material and operable unit two, OU two, which includes the non-radioactive landfill areas. In 2008, the EPA issued official records of decision for both units. The plan for OU one called for capping the landfill, consolidating radioactive soil and monitoring groundwater. The plan for OU two focused on installing caps and continuing long-term environmental monitoring. So that's kind of as far as they got in in the early 2000s. Okay. The Army Corps, this is again from CBS. The Army Corps of Engineers has been in charge of the cleanup since 1997. An early project manager estimated it would take at least eight years to finish. But now their best estimate is to finish around 2038. What? 2038. In 1997, they were like,

1:17:22this will probably take about eight years to finish cleaning up. Now they're like, oh yeah, this won't be done till 2038. They're still cleaning it now. That's fucking wild. There is a low level radioactive material there and we're going to remove it. It doesn't matter if it's lower high. We're going to remove it. It's a Colonel Andy Paniye, who leads the St. Louis cleanup site. Paniye or Paniye said the radioactive material is located in, quote, small pockets at random locations along the creek. But the Corps's own maps show some of those pockets of waste are near schools, cemeteries and even under people's homes. Oh my god. St. Louisins or or leisons are being chronic under oh near cemeteries. I said, near cemeteries, cemeteries and even under people's homes. So not under a cemetery. No, no, probably be the safest place for it. Honestly, I would rather be reading that it was under a cemetery than near schools and under people's homes. So St. Louisins are being chronically exposed to this

1:18:26every day of their lives. Camusso said last year, Camusso in the Washington University environmental law clinic analyzed the Corps's cleanup plans. Not only are they concerned about the slow pace, they said the Corps is leaving behind nearly three times more radioactive isotopes or nuclear byproducts than the Department of Energy deem safe. So they're not cleaning it up well enough. Not even close. They're cleaning it up three times as poorly as the EPA says is safe. And it's Trump's APA taking over three times longer to do it in the first place. This area has been radioactive for over seven decades. Oh my god. This is reminding me of your drunk dive. Yeah. The fire. The fire. Well, y'all, you got to join on courts. Those drunk dives get nuts. That one was particularly creepy. The underground perpetual fire. Y'all the silent in all town.

1:19:27Well, I mean, they they all had to move out for a really similar reason, but I don't that's a lot of people to under people's houses. That's really rough. Yep. Oh my god. One of the byproducts is thorium 230. Camusso said which releases alpha particles as it decays. Alpha emitters aren't typically harmful to external skin. However, when they're inhaled ingested, it's getting in the fucking groundwater or get into the body through a cut. They can damage sensitive living tissues according to the environmental protection agency. The Army Corps of Engineers told CBS News their cleanup plans are safe, but the EPA wasn't convinced. In 2020, EPA scientists asked the Corps for specific data on the contamination, but the Corps did not respond to those requests. CBS news found. So the cleanup crew is just like ignoring the demands of the EPA to get an update on what the fuck is going on here. And if this is actually an effective cleanup, meanwhile,

1:20:27the Trump administration just threw more money at it, which like is good. We should be funding this cleanup. But if the if the project itself is not being accountable, then like what's the point? If they're leaving if they're leaving behind still a dangerous amount of radioactive nuclear waste material. Yeah, then you're wasting money. In a major city. We got to figure out something else. Like crazy. I don't know what else. I don't know what else. You can do it. I know. By 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising residents to avoid cold water creek entirely. Cleanup of the creek is expected to take until 2038. A federal study found elevated rates of breast, colon, prostate, kidney, and bladder cancers, as well as leukemia in the area. Childhood, brain, and nervous system cancer rates are also higher. And the kicker is the government absolutely knew about these risks for over seven decades. So this is from Missouri independent.

1:21:28Quote federal agencies knew of the potential human health risks of the creek contamination. The documents show they got a bunch of documents through FOIA requests, but repeatedly wrote them off as slight minimal or low level. One engineering consultants report from the 1970s incorrectly claimed that human contact with the creek was rare. That people weren't even touching the creek water. Meanwhile, children are playing in the creek. You're it's a water source too. Is it not? It is, but it's like a creek that's going in people through people's backyards. Yeah, of course it's going into the groundwater, but like it's not just feeding the grass. Like people are interacting with the creek. Swimming, boating. They might not be boating. I don't know how deep it is, but like either way, a creek, a creek. I had a creek in my backyard when I was a kid and I was naked at it all the time. Yeah, all the time. If there's a creek in your backyard, you're going in it. You're playing. You're you're you're doing something with it. You have contact with the water. Mm-hmm. The Missouri independent, Muckrock, and the associated press

1:22:31spent months combing through thousands of pages of government records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviewing dozens of people who lived nearly contaminated sites. Health and radiation experts and officials from government agencies. So they're in these exposés like they're interviewing fucking everybody. They want to know what's going on. Some of the documents obtained by a nuclear researcher who focuses on the effects of radiation had to be newly declassified in the early 2000s. Others had to be had been previously lost to history, packed away in government archives and not released publicly until now. All told, the documents from the now defunct atomic energy commission, it's successors, the US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency span the 75-year lifespan of the nuclear saga in St. Louis. Oh, my fucking god. So basically since it started, there has been documentation that has indicated that this wasn't good and suppressed and then anything that wasn't suppressed was severely downplayed. Jesus. The community united around their shared exposure

1:23:35has fought for years and continues to fight for their health and transparency and accountability from the powers of the. They have had to rely on finding, connecting and comparing their stories to just on their own to get to the truth knowing that no one was going to come and and and fast up and tell them what was going on. Well, there were too many people in charge. Like yeah, this is so gross. Very Aaron Brockovich. It's it's totally Aaron Brockovich. It's just a slightly different situation. Escaping op-ed written by Diane Whitmore, Scazinbach and Janelle Rodden, Janelle Rodden Wright as a response to the Missouri Department of Health study on the Coldwater Creek area that was released in March of 2013. They wrote this op-ed and I'm going to go ahead and finish out today by reading it because she, they both of these women captured the feelings of like the most affected residents themselves included. I love Escaping op-ed. Yeah, and they maintain a website called Coldwater Creek Just the Facts, please.

1:24:40I don't know, that's their Facebook group, but they have a website that is listed in my resources and I think is also explained in here so that people living in the area can like stay updated and connected. They have like health maps and all kinds of stuff. So this says, the Missouri Department of Health new reports, this is written in, they wrote this in 2013 as a response to that report. Missouri Department of Health new report failing to link piles of uranium, thorium and radium to cancers in current residents of Norse Saint Louis County is just like the old joke about a man who is searching for his car keys under a street light. When a passerby asks him where he had last seen the keys, he points toward a dark alley nearby. Then why are you looking over here asks the bystander? The man looks up and replies because the light is better over here. The Department of Health looked where the light was shining not where we think the keys were lost. We are part of a group of fluorescent natives and the McClure North High School graduates who two years ago started to ask questions about why an unusually large number of our childhood

1:25:42friends with whom we were connected via Facebook were being diagnosed with cancers in their 30s and early 40s. Our group contains auditors, lawyers and social science professors, so we are sophisticated enough to understand that sometimes patterns happen randomly. For example, if you flip a coin six times, sometimes by random chance you get all six heads, 1.6 percent of the time actually. Only after we noticed the pattern and cancer rates did we learn about the piles of the nuclear waste dumped starting in the 1940s that were located near the source of cold water creek, a body of water that runs through our old neighborhoods and often backed up and flooded our basements. Oh, y'all. Prior to our inquiries into the impacts of this nuclear waste, the last major press coverage occurred when we were children. Worried about football games and dates for homecoming dances, not the potential long-term impacts of ionizing radiation? Imagine our horror when we learned that back in 1989, testing of the banks of the creek in our neighborhoods revealed elevated levels of toxins. Could this explain the high cancer rates we were

1:26:45noticing? Before long, the story went viral. Today, our Facebook group, Cold Water Creek, Justice Facts Please, has more than 7,000 members and more than 2,000 reports of illnesses like cancer, autoimmune diseases and thyroid problems. Members have posted photos of smiling little league teams from the 1970s playing baseball on fields right by the waste piles. The fields have since been closed and are being cleaned up. The piles. The image of piles. Open, nuclear waste. By a baseball field. It's so dystopian, it's like unimaginable. It doesn't sound real. You don't sound like this. I don't, but I'll find someone to upload them, but the sources that I have really didn't have like photos from this time. I just want to like picture it. I know, but I'll find some. There have been chilling reminiscences of kids playing in the creek catching two headed crawdads. And storing after heartbreaking story of lives impacted at two

1:27:48young and aged by cancers. The Missouri Department of Health recently released a study looking at rates of cancer from 1996 to 2004 among then current residents of a subset of the zip codes of concern. They concluded that there is nothing to worry about. While there are elevated rates of some types of cancers, including breast, colon, kidney and prostate, the report claims are more likely the fault of the residents' lifestyles. Those cancers are like the big. The big ones. Yeah. Like the most, some of the most common. This is so like reductive and condescending. Yep. The report is completely uninformative because like the man looking for his keys under the street light, they were looking for cancers among current residents. And the current residents are generally not those who were potentially exposed to the random to the radiation prior to the cleanup efforts. According to the 2007 to 2011 American Community Survey, more than 75% of residents of our old zip code 63033, one of the zips considered in the study, have moved to their current residents

1:28:52since 1990. 56% moved since 2000. The waste piles were placed on the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities list in 1989 and cleanup has been ongoing. Yeah. It's fucking 45 years. So yeah, like we should be looking at those residents, not residents from the 90s after the EPA already stepped in. And so yeah, the rates are still elevated, but they had started to clean up the issue. The rate of neighborhood turnover in the area today stands in sharp contrast to our experience growing up there in the 1970s and 1980s. The vast majority of our kindergarten classes still lived in the area through high school, but almost none of us still lives there in the zip codes that were studied. Many live in other parts of the St. Louis area. Some of us are unlucky enough to currently live out of state. From a public health perspective, the most important question is whether those of us with prolonged childhood exposure to the waste are suffering ill effects. Cancer rates among current residents are also important, but this misses the point.

1:29:53As if studying the wrong population was not enough, the study felt far short along other dimensions. The data analysis was limited to the years of 1996 to 2004, apparently because of the department's lack of access to updated census data that appear to be available here. Approximately half of the illnesses reported on the Facebook page that have been diagnosed after 2004. So after the study ended, the study also excluded several important zip codes in its analysis that are in that cold water creek area. More important, the report claims that the elevated cancers are likely due to residents' lifestyles, but three of the four elevated cancer types, breast, colon and kidney, are known to be a disease associated with ionizing radiation exposure. We believe the Missouri Department of Health takes its mission to promote and protect the public's health seriously, but its study sheds no light where the real problem might be. The nature of the issues at play here with high geographic mobility and substantial latency period between potential exposure and the diagnosis highlights the limitations of standard epidemiological

1:30:56techniques. In the 21st century, social media is an important way for us to connect. It is through social media that we uncovered this troubling pattern in the first place. The Department of Health should go back to the drawing board and tap some of Missouri's best minds to advise the study to really answer the question. It will not be easy and will require a better data collection effort than has been undertaken in the past. Yeah, it's like they barely fucking tried. Barely touched it. They looked at not even 10 years and not even took into consideration that many people that had been living in that area with the most exposure were long gone by the time they even did the study. Yeah, either, I mean, also both could be true. Either they did not want to find any kind of correlation or they were just like completely inept people conducting this. Yeah, either didn't want to or weren't funded to all the above. We would look forward to working together to uncover the truth. So just a little bit about the writers. Diane Whitmore, Scazenbach is an economist at Northwest University and a fellow of the Op Ed project.

1:31:57Janelle Rodden Wright was formerly a financial executive at Jones Farma and CPA Audit Manager at Ernst Young and Young LLP. They are both fluorescent neighbors. Some more than $400 million has been projected and allocated by the federal government to fund the ongoing environmental remediation of Coldwater Creek and it's adjacent St. Louis County properties that are like at the highest risk. That doesn't seem like enough. If this is also a 40-fucking-year project. Yeah. The most recent boost in funding happened just last year in 2025 when an additional 40 million was allocated to the project. Like I've said, the cleanup continues and it's still projected to continue through 2038. 40 million and honestly 400 million is fucking peanuts for how big of a problem this is. I know. Like I said, we don't have direct, like if you google how many deaths are connected, like how many cancer deaths or whatever are connected to the Coldwater Creek

1:32:58nuclear waste and like it says like we don't have a solid number because they're not tracking that kind of statistic. So yeah, that is Coldwater Creek. I hate it. Yeah. I hate it. I'm sorry for anybody who lives anywhere near that. I know. Isn't that wild? It's like you totally nailed it. It's so air and brock of itch but it's just like how long these people have been suffering unknowingly until like fairly recently and it's like we're connecting with all of our friends on social media and they're all fucking dying of cancer. It's because you see all those, everyone's, you know, updates. Isn't that crazy? That is so wild. If it weren't for all of these people being on Facebook that we might not be studying this much at all. I mean, obviously the cleanup effort would still be happening but like we the expose they probably wouldn't be like we wouldn't be paying as much attention if these people didn't connect with each other and go wait what the fuck why is this happening? Doing their own nuclear forensics if you will. Exactly. Well, I was thinking also they

1:34:00would have had to use nuclear forensics to figure out what materials there were in the creek in the first place. Yeah. So it's correlated. It's definitely correlated. It definitely we made it fit and I really appreciate Amanda Almond for bringing that case to our attention because I just did not know that's right in St. Louis. I had no idea. It's reminding me of the water quality that we have in Des Moines right now. It's really scary. That's not radioactive. That's nitrate runoff farm runoff. But it's also all connected with like different cancer. Lacking, lacking regulations. Yeah, and cancers. I think Iowa has the highest rate of cancer in the country right now by like a lot. It's really scary. Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't either. No, no, but I do like Amanda Almond. Our fan picture. Thanks Amanda. Sorry about all those pets that were abandoned it by your childhood driveway. Oops. It wasn't us. It wasn't me. Yeah, it wasn't us. It wasn't us.

1:35:04We swear. I've not ever dumped a pet on the side of the road. No. And I hope nobody listening has or will. Yeah. Quit doing it if you are. Yeah. Cut it out you except for those pesky rodents apparently hamsters fine. Let them let them go. Just kidding. Just kidding. If it's that zombie hamster that they'd throw out the window. Yeah, it might be torment. It might not even be dead. Gorman you anyway. Okay. Good luck with your hamsters and we will see you all next week and we love you. Come find us on Uncorked for more shit like this. Yeah. All right. See you next week. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to Wine and Crime. Our cover art is by Danielle Sylvan, music by Phil Young and Corey Wendell, editing by Jonathan Camp. Our production manager is Andrea Gardner for photos, sources and other resources had to wine and crime podcast.com. You can follow us on all the socials at Wine and Crime Pod. If you'd like to show your support and get access to

1:36:09all sorts of wine-fueled bonus content, check out our premium channel at wine and crimepodcast.com slash Uncorked. Cheers.

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