A nuclear waste dump you can walk on
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- Опубликовано: 3 сен 2017
- In Weldon Spring, Missouri, there is a strange, grey, windblasted seven-storey pile of rocks. It's the Weldon Spring Site: a nuclear and toxic waste dump on the site of an old uranium processing factory. And you can walk on it: it's technically a tourist attraction. That was going to be the whole of my video... and then I did some more research.
Filmed by Matt Gray - mattg.co.uk - @unnamedculprit
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If you're wondering why I look like such a mess: Missouri is hot and humid, and I am covered in a day's worth of sweat and sunblock. Couldn't even put my contact lenses in...!
Imagine living here... 😵
How did you write this comment one week ago?
Wish I had known you were in town, we have so many other places that I think you would have found interesting.
F.J. N. 1 week ago wtf ?
Tom Scott when do you resolve the riddle of the solar eclipse?
how did you not end with "such a waste"
he's not trump. stupid!
was that supposed to make sense?
how is that even remotely related to trump
you know how trump always tweets in the same format? it reminded me of it, he always ends them with a generalisation of how he felt about the tweet
sad!
The fact you can remember all of those lines and say them without trouble is mind blowing to me
Memorized script
He's clearly using autocue/telepromter. (Before you ask: no he isn't)
NoName I know, but you have got to imagine how many times they try to get it just right
One of the reasons to have cutaway shots and B-roll footage is to hide where you spliced multiple takes in the edit.
Lots of takes are edited together into one seamless episode.
Just popping in here in 2020 to point out that the underground trash fire in West Lake is still burning nearly a decade after it started.
Cant they put the fire off?
@@annedrieck7316 its underground?? so no... as a representative of the people of st. louis (lived here for about 17 years) i can say its not really a big deal. also we have more issues politically and criminally than some radioactive waste that has had no long term effects on residents
@@uh-60blackhawk64 you wouldn't be saying that if you were one of the individuals that got cancer, there are a lot of people out there that are angry at someone for getting cancer but can't do anything about it.
@@annedrieck7316l
@@sacr3 cancer has been happeing for thousends of years nowone can say its because of these sites we get more radiation watching this from our devices then thee its easy to make it safe
And you did not even bring your Geiger counter?
Yeah, would have been cool to see if there is some slightly radioactive materials around, or if the background radiation is noticeably higher there. Guess we'll have to tell Bionerd to go check it out xD
They are probably prohibited as part of laws regarding federal land. You cannot have meters or devises that detect things not observable otherwise. For example you will get your ass handed to you for having a metal detector in a national park.
No blood sugar meters? :V
www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/36/2.1 - forbids metal detectors in national parks, it doesn't say anything about radiation meters or nuclear waste sites on publicly accessible grounds.
I imagine metal detectors are banned because they don't want people digging up national parks.
I live in St. Louis. I can confirm that this is a disaster surrounded by misinformation and great uncertainty... to say the least. The worst part is that due to the close proximities these sites have to the Missouri River, their runoff usually goes into the Missouri, which later flows into the Mississippi north of STL’s drinking water taps. The West Lake Landfill is probably the most active concern, considering that the underground trash fire is quickly approaching the nuclear waste, with (so far) no barrier to stop the fire and little attempt to put it out. Residents near the landfill also report constant toxic odors that drift with the wind into their neighborhoods. The situation up here is something out of a fictional movie.
James G I can attest to what you're saying. You couldn't make it up it's so crazy.
James G I drive to work on 270 and it smells really bad in the morning. I feel bad for Westport people
It may not even be possible to put it out, the problem with underground fires is you can't expose them to properly fight them without greatly improving the oxygen flow to the fire making it far worse. Just dumping in water through existing openings and shafts often isn't viable either whether due to the rock in the region being porous in which case the water just gets absorbed or worse with the restricted availability of vents for the steam produced sometimes the risk of inducing a massive steam explosion is far too great. There is a reason why accidentally ignited coal seams have been left to burn in the past despite it being a waste of extremely valuable material, there just wasn't any practical way to stop them.
Exactly the situation in Centralia PA. That coal fire has been burning since 1962 and there is estimated to be enough coal in the area for the fire to continue to burn for possibly another 250 years.
James G You remind me of my time in Illinois, and repeatedly flushing the toilet because it was still yellow. Perhaps it was the same yellow water that Johnny Cash complained about at Folsom Prison. I forget exactly where that was. I guess I was lucky to have avoided the Saint Louis water when I passed through.
Tom: Thank you so much for covering this! I actually live in the middle of this, West Lake is a stone's throw from where I live, and it's not just there... you can smell the Bridgeton Landfill, the one that has the underground fire, from my house on some days. This legacy from the 60s or earlier is a fact of life in this area of Missouri, and a concern for many. It means a lot that you came and covered this, thank you from everyone here.
Harry Godwin I live in st-charles over by st. Andrews movie theater Westlake is like 3 miles or so from my house straight shot down 70
@@mclaren44 Nope just cancer and autoimmune diseases.
What you smell is methane, they legally have to dump so much in the atmosphere
My highschool I went to, Francis Howell High, is just over those trees (you can see it in a few shots of this video). That highschool was originally a military base, which was decommissioned in the 1940's and then converted into a school. During our PE classes, we would jog to the top of this thing and back. Us locals just call it the rock pile.
What year did you graduate?
I went to Francis Howell High also. I remember all the stories about the history of the area and it really blew me away. When I was on the wrestling team, we also ran to and from the rock pile a couple of times. It was a weird feeling being so close to a giant mound built to contain nuclear waste, but also knowing that it was safe to be that close to it.
I went there too!
Glad to see another alumni here. I graduated in 2017
Make a Park Bench there!
"Hi I'm Matt."
"and I'm Tom."
"and this is the park bench"
"...on top of nuclear waste... yeah"
"yeah"
how I imagine the intro is going to be..
halimceria what a waste of a joke opportunity
7-eye frog bounces in the background...
Willian Wives my track team does runs to the rock pile every week and that bench is the best thing to sit on after a nice jog
@Rizky Satya Too bad they already did it, eh? You can see them in the video.
Me: living close to this pit, having friends who go to the highschool that is next to the pit
It is what it is
As someone who went to Francis Howell in the 90s, it was kinda surreal discovering that Tom Scott did a video from here.
Also, fun fact, probably unrelated, both of my parents have had multiple different forms of cancer each. 🙃
Time to move perhaps...
@@allankcrain I graduated from Francis Howell in 2010. Hearing the stories from the area around it makes it amazing that the school is still there.
Possibly unrelated to the radiation in the area but I found out one of my math teachers died from cancer a few years after I graduated.
I go to Francis Howell and am graduating in 2023. A couple of times close to the end of the school years, some teachers would take us on walks up the pile, and in a gym class we rode past it every day on bikes and went up a couple times.
I go there and always wonder if I'm drinking cancer water 😅
The sad part is we had a universal dump site assigned in Nevada, but because politics, we're not going to use it and continue leaving stuff where it is. If that sounds stupid and dangerous, it's because it is.
To be fair, we’d be dumping nuclear waste on Native American soil. Not exactly the greatest idea.
@@dok3304 That's the case for literally all of the US though. Its a settler colonialist state, that's how it works.
@@michelleshilling7450 semantics; they have less now then ever. Geez
@@dok3304 The whole US is native american soil? Bury it deep enough to not bother anyone or anything. Problem solved.
Sorry to cut in to an otherwise serious debate/discussion, but i cannot get over how 'universal dump' sounds like another way of saying a 'colossal shite', I just have the imagine of a god-like being struggling to take a crap on the toilet... sorry, i'm in very juvenile mood
That end shot was cool!
IDKHOWTOPLAY I was just thinking that! Wonder if they used a drone? Seems too quick for a person - especially that smoothly
I think it was an experienced videographer with a steady hand, but that makes this one-shot wonder no less impressive. Todays lightweight cameras makes it much easier than when I was younger.
Buddy Clem he could have had a zoom lense..
Buddy Clem all they got to do is use a zoom lens and have him with a microphone on.. then at the end zoom out
Your videos are some of the best of youtube.
Straight to the point, not 10 minutes forced stretch.
No silly intros, and a great editing. Thank you Tom.
Well researched, cool that you're actually at the location, good camera work, and impressive that you got it all in what appears to be a single take. Good work, as usual!
Sounds like Missouri all right
Missouri is painfully humid AF.
Try fort Myers Florida, during the summer it total sucks !!!
Been all over the world st.louis is one of the worst for humidity it's exactly like Puerto Vallarta in the summer
@@lizardking5237 I'm from Missouri, and live near Ft Myers, these comments are spot-on.
lizard king I live in Florida, and I’m totally used to it haha
@@crowvelle Yep nothing like it being below freezing one and day and the next you need to turn the AC on. Typical Missouri
Tom, this is fascinating, I am thrilled someone totally removed from the situation in Weldon Spring and Bridgeton (the location of Westlake) is brining light to this problem. It's a big problem, but I feel most of us in the St. Louis area feel there's not a lot that we can do....especially given the recent apathetic role the EPA has taken on.
Although Weldon Spring certainly looks to be rural, it's not. There are loads and loads of housing developments, and a very large high school, nearby. I have grandparents in their 90s that live within the evacuation zone should the fire at Westlake spread, which would be a logistical and emotional nightmare to uproot them. The evacuation zone would also include Clayton, Missouri, which is a heavy financial / business area in St. Louis. Although the chances of a disaster happening are slim, it's possible And it would be devastating.
Anyway, great video Tom. I personally appreciate this video! And I hope you enjoyed St. Louis. This makes us look really really bad, but I swear it's a great place otherwise!
Andy Reed I love St Louis. It's a diverse, rich in history, friendly people type of place. It's too bad it has these contamination issues.
St. Sewage
You know the above ground radiation detectors that were setup in Japan after Fukishima so parents would return their kids to the schools "near" the nuclear facility that had the incident in 2011? Get the residents together to crowd fund raise something that is big and in your face.
Nearly 1 mil subs, Nice!
I remember when my school took us here for a field trip and I was like “mom I got to see nuclear waste for the day”
Tom you should do a video on how you do your research/ make a video. It would be cool to get that insight.
I'm not an expert, but I'm guessing it goes a bit like this...
Google
I mean, how do you think Michael from Vsauce does it?
It obviously appears on his desk already done.
We know it's safe there because Tom's red t-shirt didn't turn big, green and angry.
"The Simpsons" theme tune came to mind with the glowing barrel :) . Shame it wasn't a bit longer looks interesting
It was the trash fire that burned for seven years that reminded me of the Simpsons and their tire fire.
The frog reminded me of Blinky the three-eyed fish.
Me too, all of the Simpson's memes.
That end shot was stunning... and so was the content.
Binge watching this channel all day- thanks, dude
"significantly higher" does not mean what most people think it does here:
It means that the difference to the average was significant enough that random fluctuations are unlikely to be the cause, it does not mean that there are many more cancer-cases.
Think of it like this:
Some things have, by default, a big spread. if something has a 5 in 1000 chance of occurring, it might very well be that you find 20, or 0.
in statistics now "significantly higher" means that the chance of the higher rate being natural is very minor, or the other way around - it is most certainly the radiation that caused the increase - but it doesn't tell us how much that is. it might be as little as an increase from 0.05% chance to 0.1% chance.
Fun bonus fact:
The stress caused by the fearmongering over radiation is actually more dangerous.
In Fukushima more people died as a direct result of anti-nuce quackery than people got cancer from the reactor meltdown. (not that we should in any way ignore the danger)
It's worse than that let's say I measure the incidence of 100 types of cancer in a population exposed to some toxic chemical. The chance of one of them being significantly elevated at the p
In regards to Fukushima, cancer from radiation can take decades to show up - it’s not even been one decade since the disaster. I don’t necessarily disagree with your point (though I am uncertain of it’s validity), I just wanted to point that out.
The possibility of being killed by a cow is significantly higher than being killed by a shark. Both of which pale in comparison to the likelihood of being killed by car. Now if it's a car being driven by a cow with his drunk buddy the shark...
2000 is how many people died prematurely due to the evacuation. Around 10,000 is the number of people who died prematurely due to replacing Japan's electricity mix with more coal and natural gas since 2011.
No people got or will get cancer from the reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, actually. There was one supposed "confirmed case" of a worker but it was very clearly not caused by the accident itself. Nevertheless as a radiation worker the standard procedure is to recognize it as work-related and pay compensation to his family, which is nice.
ABaumstumpf ”significantly” can be used both as ” with statistical aignificance” i.e. what you are saying and in the common usage sense of ”different wnough that it makes a difference that really matters”.
"Radiation hazards are invisible and terrifying" may just be my favourite quote ever!
Always bringing the cool and informative videos, Thanks Tom!
You makare amazing videos. The editing, your scripts and topics, your explainations. All are excellentl! Keep the good work up!
My high school was about a half mile from the plant. I was shocked to go back 30 years later and see the plant gone and the giant hill of gravel.
This is about 15 minutes from where I grew up, and the crazy thing is that there is a highschool about 200 feet away. Its also the highest point in town, so the view is absolutely astonishing! There is also almost nothing for sound to reverberate off of, so speaking or clapping just seems off. It's a cool place!
I live 5 minutes away from this! Very cool to see a video in my home town.
Your content- is on another level. Seriously dude this is like some pbs doc, like a lot of yur vids-and the productiom value is way better and the content is more interesting. Really appreciate what yur doing
I live in St. Louis. My in-laws grew up near Coldwater Creek from the 60s up to now. They've suffered through more than their fair share of rare cancers, medical hardships, birth defects, etc. Thank you for bringing light to the situation and spreading the word.
It's so weird seeing tom next to a place I use to live to.
looking back at this, tom's been literally everywhere
This was a really good one, Tom and Matt!
This is terrifying. Reminds me of the Marshall Islands fallout from nuclear testing nearby, & at once the Centralia coal fire.
Hey thanks for coming to Missouri, I hope you liked it! It's good to see some videos about my home state, even if it is about a toxic waste dump...........hmm.
Another great one shot video Tom! Always a pleasure to view!
Love your videos, Tom
how I feel about my country:" this here is a legacy of a time when the people in charge didn't know or didn't care. But this here isn't a lesson about how we've fixed their mistakes, but a reminder that we're still fixing them, and we'll still need to for centuries to come."
stupid pacifists
That's every country, not just this country.
Tom, you should have given us a warning that you'd be in St. Louis.
If I had known you'd be here I could have shown you some of the lesser known sites in St. Louis such as the illegal PCB dump at the top of my neighborhood or Rout 66 State Park that use to be the town of Times Beach and why/how it was destroyed because Russel Bliss wanted easy money.
Its a really interesting topic for a video on and is still being cleaned up to this day.
Brilliant video, Tom. Brilliant video.
Your best yet. Brilliant
oh my god!!!! I used to live there!! There's a high school a five minute walk away from that site that I used to go to, and you can actually see it at 1:53 behind the trees. We had to do a project on this thing and we had to discuss its history and its effects today. Super cool to see it shown here!!
Good timing for that butterfly at the end.
2:35?
Tom. love your channel. I’m sure you have heard this a thousand times but you have a distinctive voice reminiscent of another well know celebrity, but I can quite put my finger on it. Keep up the good work.
Wish I knew you were coming. Been a fan for a while. It would be cool to have met you.
"...a legacy of a time ehen the people in charge didn't know or didn't care..." Tom, do you think anything changed? "...about radioactive contamination." Oh, ok nevermind.
I live down the road from Weldon Springs in the same county. August was the mildest in recent memory.
You have a great job sir. Keep it up.
your voice is a blessing. an utter blessing. it soothes me and also makes me focus on the task I have at hand!
You should bring a geiger counter with you to these radioactive storage areas.
It would be really interesting (and horrific) if you ever went to old soviet block countries with a geiger counter and interviewed some locals. The Kyshtym disaster, Lake Karachay, and The Polygon. Let alone the probably unknown numbers of ones in China and Afghanistan...
You find more interesting places in America and Europe than Discovery and NG has found all over the world, and your videos are often short but filled with facts that make me eager to read a bit more, even you have 916K subs do I think you are very under subbed.
God damn the editting and cinematography in this
Luv u Tom
How is there still Tom Scott Videos I've never seen? I'd thought I've binged them all by now. 😆
Hey! Down the street from there, take 94 back to hwy d and youll fine August A.Busch conservation area, there you can see over 150 hidden from the air reinforced bunkers. Some protected munitions and tnt along with nuclear waste while others had living quarters most are locked but some you can get in and its pretty interesting
You should do a video of finnish Onkalo nuclear waste tunnel. It's been designed to last so long that they're trying to figure out what kind of images they could use to signal danger in the future if human language isn't around or is changed too much.
Torille?
Torille.
Good to see you found a video subject to cover while filming the eclipse.
Thank you, Tom. Well done!
TOM WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME YOU WERE NEAR SAINT LOUIS
realty Because he was there for the eclipse, and he's doing a whole "Where was I during the eclipse" thing.
realty it wouldn’t make sense for him to announce to the 🌎 every location he’s going to.
realty right? We could have all met up and had contaminated drinking water together.
>
andrew nelson
I would’ve been looking forward to a meet up
So they decided they would "clean it up" by burying it under thousands of tons of rocks?
Hey it's how I got rid of my noisy neighbours, they haven't bothered me since... I've said too much...
That's how you get rid of most nuclear waste. Just bury it underground. The rocks "absorb" most of the radiation anyways.
What would you do?
Soil is a really good insulator for radiation
If you cannot see it, it's gone. - That's how it works, right?
Loving those one-take long scenes. Nice report.
I grew up near hear. It was real interesting learning about the site
I live in STL and there is a state park where you can walk, fish, boat, exa. Scattered around the park are industrial concrete bunkers with blocks of concrete that weigh thousands of pounds blocking the doors. Behind those massive doors is hazardous nuclear waste. STL is a treasure trove for finding nuclear waste.
In my town they knocked down an old radium factory and built a park
Theres a lot of those in Busch wildlife reserve which also happens to be in Weldon Spring, MO. I grew up nearby and that was a place my family would frequent for short trail hikes. Never looked in one, and probably never will. Radiation is one ugly bastard.
Busch wildlife
That was ever so slightly nauseating.
These glasses are looking great on you, Tom! Keep up the good work!
Great moving cinematography!
I grew up in a superfund site (south minneapolis residential soil contamination). I'm lucky in that I was found to have low, non harmful levels of arsenic in my system. it seemed so normal to have the epa take the dirt from our yard and give us new dirt when I was young, but now as an adult it is very much not normal. and I know there are areas where the human impact was and is much worse, closer to the former plant site.
I personally think this video could have been 10 times longer and gone in depth about what they did to clean up the mess, what they’re doing to address the flood caused contamination, etc.
That camera motion is so smooth and steady, I can't take it! :D
Love this series!!
If you grew up in the St. Louis area, going here on a school field trip is basically tradition. It's so weird seeing him cover a place I've actually been to for once.
Strange looking frogs? Is this where Kermit was born?
Great camera work!
Great video, cool story, awesome cinematography!
I thought you released videos only on Tuesdays. Or was it Wednesdays?
So... radioactivity reduces thyroid cancer risks?
(if you haven't noticed, i'm joking here)
Faishal Ridwan oh that would be cool since I just got diagnosed with Hashimoto's 😬
Nah. That's probably just a coincidence that the locals happened to get that type of cancer less often than most areas of similar population.
The effects of low levels of radiation exposure are controversial. Small doses are either slightly harmful, inconsequential, or slightly beneficial depending on who you ask.
Thyroid cancer is quite closely linked with the release of radioactive waste particularly iodine 131, as it enters the blood stream and is concentrated in the thyroid (I believe this is how they treat hyperthyroidism)
However, as it has a short half, by flooding the thyroid with I-127 most negative effects can be avoided.
Most often a large sample of a small population, is not representative of the same absolute number of people over a much larger population.
I know this hasn't answered your question at all, so sorry...
Not really. Correlation does not imply causation. I'm pretty sure there can be plenty of different reasons why people living near this site have reduced likelihood of having thyroid cancer.
One take? Amazing how you pace yourself through the script while walking around and your camera operator flies around with such coordination.
hey, my high school is literally just a few meters next door to that, I remember sometimes heading there after school or biking there during school. Nice place, especially with the greenway
Wait, wait, wait - all I have to do is go to a nuclear waste dump to deal with my Hashimoto's? Why is the thyroid cancer rate lower I wonder?
Small amounts of radiation can reduce the risk of cancer.
No, radiation won't treat Hashimoto's Disease because it is not thyroid cancer. Hashimoto's is the one where your thyroid dies and they don't know why (or at least they didn't know the cause in my case).
However, hyperthyroidism can be treated with radiation because the radiation kills your thyroid (thus treating the problem of it being overactive). My mom had the version of hyperthyroidism called Grave's Disease, and they treated it with radioactive iodine. Once her thyroid was dead, they gave her Synthroid to take, which is also what I take for my Hashimoto's.
The radiation hormesis to which you are referring is in no way a consensus view of radiation biologists. Many would consider it a fringe theory at best.
This doesn't necessarily mean it's completely wrong, but it is not well supported by the evidence at this time.
If radiation kills your thyroid gland, then it would help people with hashimotos as well, because if you have no thyroid, there is no thyroid for your immune system to attack. And you can just supplement with levothyroxine accordingly. People have been treated for severe hashimotos before by simply removing the thyroid surgically.
rdizzy1 - Hashimoto's is when your thyroid is already dead, and radiation can't kill what's already dead.
I've been to this!, I live like 15 minutes from this
I usually don't feel dizzy watching drone/steady cam's that move around a lot but it was a bit excessive in this video. Though the 360 view was nice I feel like the closing shot would've given most people the same experience.
Great video!
It's pretty neat seeing Tom come out to the St. Louis area!
I thought you were talking about London.
roasted
I thought Detroit
oh i bet your 50 stolen states were just too free for anyone to clean up after the leading amount of incarcerated citizens were released in detroit. or maybe I should just take a joke
Spectre
maybe you should
Spectre You really think so?
US Border Agent: Why are you coming to the USA
Tom: I'm going to a nuclear waste site.
It's quality when you get the drones out. Good job
That bench looks like a great place to read a book
So how do they cover the waste? Is it all the rocks, or is it something underneath?
Why can't you step off the walkway?
Fireork concrete or just good ol' rock will do the trick.
You probably can't step off the walkway simply because the government doesn't want to be sued if you trip, fall, and break your leg.
Fireork thick rock or concrete reduce or block radiation the warning not to go off the path is because its still possible to minor exposure aka better safe then sorry also its not impossible that the rocks could be slightly radioactive if its been there long enough personally i wouldn't even go there at all even if odds of noticeable exposure is extremely low I wouldn't take the risk as any exposure more then absolutely necessary is still increased odds of cancer and other issues down the line.
Note i don't have a clue on the composition or depth of this cover tho i hope they've done something to stop it contaminating water.
Ritoban Roy Chowdhury - they say that so you do!
Can't step off the walkway because the radscorpions live in the rocks
One Take! WOHOO!
I live right next to this place (no lie). I remember driving by it multiple times and one day I had the nerve to ask what it was. My parents had no clue so we stopped and walked to the top. I was to young to understand what it actually was until I saw this video and remembered it. Thanks for sparking that memory!
very informative Tom, i live in Mo. and wasn't aware of this place. keep up to good work.
Don`t overdo the rotating camera movements
GFmanaic yeah it's fine when he's walking to somewhere, but not when he's just walking around in circles
I want to see an outtake of Matt tripping over one of those many rocks as he is walking backwards, and rolling down the mound
I totally think this is Matt's idea
I think it works when you're at the top of something and you have a vista to pan across.
Pans in 30 fps are so choppy.
Fun fact: Just a little due east, you’ll find the second most toxic place in that area: Francis Howell.
I went there, very accurate.
Intentional or not, I really like the final pan out glossing over the big warning sign! (regardless of its relevance)
I went on a field trip here as a kid I had no idea what it was. Thanks Tom for the info. 😁
1:09
Whoever wrote that last bullet point clearly didn't have time for the word "is".
EightThreeEight
Or perhaps it was unnecessary
I think I've seen about 70 to 90 percent of the time like the sign in the video. Like one sign I drive by quite often says "Speed Checked by Radar" not 'Speed is Checked by Radar'
Blinky from the Simpsons lives there :O
i love his videos i wish they were longer..
ayyyyy when tom scott talks about places you've gone to a million times