What I Watched -- The Safe Side of the Fence

I can't remember where I heard about The Safe Side of the Fence.  It was at SLIFF a year or two ago, but I missed it then.  I was able to find a copy at the St. Louis Public Library.

This movie is a bit horrifying.  It tells the story of the workers at the Mallinckrodt employees who worked at the various sites around St. Louis during the thirty or so years beginning in the middle of World War II.  Their jobs covered the spectrum of everything that was needed to develop and build an atomic bomb, including research into creating a sustained nuclear reaction and processing uranium for use in the bombs themselves.

What happened to the workers is bad news.  There were little to no protections in place to shield them from the radioactive mess that they were creating.  But what amazed me so much is that it's still going on!  There were three big dump sites in St. Louis where radioactive waste is still leeching into the groundwater, despite being actively monitored.  One is out in St. Charles near Weldon Springs; one is in Bridgeton near Creve Coeur Lake, and one is immediately north of the airport and adjacent to the Boeing campus and with Coldwater Creek running right through the middle of it.

The movie doesn't draw many conclusions except to say that the problem isn't over, but that was enough for me.

Bottom line: a must-see for anyone who lives in St. Louis, or is interested in it.