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It's also available on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | |
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Looking to contact your members of Congress? | ||
| Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory. | ||
| Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. | ||
| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress. | ||
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| Nearly 3,500 students across 42 states and D.C. participated in this year's C-SPAN Student Cam Documentary Competition. | ||
| This year, we asked students to create short videos with messages to the president exploring issues important to them or their communities. | ||
| All this month, we're featuring our top 21 winning entries. | ||
| One of this year's second prize high school central winners is an 11th grader from Kirkwood High School in Kirkwood, Missouri, where C-SPAN is available through Spectrum. | ||
| Their winning documentary is titled, The Radioactive Waste Crisis, A Hidden Hazard. | ||
| 2012, an 11-month period. | ||
| I had a total hysterectomy due to masses on my ovaries. | ||
| I had an adrenal gland removed due to a tumor. | ||
| I've had thyroid cancer. | ||
| No, the creek has been contaminated since 1949. | ||
| That's the earliest documentation we have that the federal government knew. | ||
| And yet today, they're still doing testing along it to figure out just how much radioactive waste has left the creek and where it all has. | ||
| Coldwater Creek is right over there behind these homes, and it's believed that six homes on the street were built on soil that has radioactive contamination. | ||
| Ignored the city. | ||
| Checking basements for radioactive contamination. | ||
| We need a durable fused fuel program with highly radioactive exposure to radioactive waste and Coldwater Creek. | ||
| Radioactive waste. | ||
| 15 people on my street alone had already passed away. | ||
| All of the sites and all of the issues into one issue, which really is trying to hold the federal government accountable for what they have done to the region. | ||
| Radioactive waste in St. Louis, Missouri has been a topic of debate for nearly a decade. | ||
| We have the most acreage of radioactive waste out of any city in the United States, yet the amount continues to grow. | ||
| But before we get into all the details, we have to stop and ask, what exactly is radioactive waste? | ||
| Radioactive waste is a problem with somewhere it's not supposed to be. | ||
| So what it is is radioactive material that no longer has a use for wherever it's at. | ||
| When it's no longer useful, it becomes radioactive waste. | ||
| During the 1940s and throughout the Cold War, Mallancroft Chemical Works, a company based in downtown St. Louis, was secretly processing uranium for the Manhattan Project. | ||
| St. Louis has earned the nickname and it's very accurate as the first secret city. | ||
| A lot of what has happened with the Manhattan Project in St. Louis was classified. | ||
| Mallancroft was the only source of uranium for America from 1942 to 1957. | ||
| Because there were no laws at that time regarding the disposal of hazardous waste, about 133,000 tons of radioactive waste was carelessly dumped off-site. | ||
| The waste laid open for years and through stormwater runoff and flooding, it found its way into Coldwater Creek, a 20-mile creek flowing along several homes, parks, and schools in North County, Missouri. | ||
| Meaning all of this highly radioactive material was being exposed to people, causing many long-term health effects. | ||
| The most important long-term exposure is actually cancer, secondary cancers. | ||
| However, the entire time, the presence of radioactive contamination was unknown to the local residents because the government never warned the public. | ||
| In other words, people were unknowingly being poisoned by their own government. | ||
| People were not moved from that area. | ||
| Children were playing in that creek. | ||
| And as a result, there were a lot of these rare cancers and more common cancers that developed. | ||
| People who grow up in these areas that are sick, most people who are sick want to know why they're sick. | ||
| The government has lied to the people of Missouri for years about this by telling us that they had cleaned it up and they haven't, by saying it wasn't a problem and it is, and they haven't compensated anybody. | ||
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We rely on the government to help protect us. | |
| We would really hope that our government would help to protect us. | ||
| However, as mentioned before, that has not been the case for St. Louis. | ||
| This now leads us to the question of why the government hasn't informed the public and what the government needs to do in order to help solve this problem. | ||
| The nonprofit Just Moms STL has been dedicated to solving this issue in the St. Louis area. | ||
| They have uncovered thousands of new documents showing how contaminated this area is and how many people could have been harmed. | ||
| They also show the senators of Congress how many people could have been harmed, leading them to push for federal compensation called RECA, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. | ||
| RECA was originally passed in 1990, providing federal compensation to those affected by government-created radiation and or been diagnosed with cancer. | ||
| Even though here in St. Louis we have the most acreage of radioactive waste in the nation and the highest rate of breast cancer in the nation in St. Louis County, RECA still doesn't cover Missouri. | ||
| Senator Josh Hawley has been dedicated to try and expand RECA for Missouri. | ||
| Why I've introduced legislation and we've passed it through the Senate twice now that would compensate every person who was exposed to nuclear radiation and got sick of it because of the government's negligence. | ||
| Members of both parties in the House to move this legislation and to do right by the people of Missouri and frankly hundreds of thousands of other Americans in other states across the country. | ||
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What would your message to the future president be in order to help solve this issue? | |
| Well, number one, pass the Radiation Exposure Act, pass my bill to compensate the people of Missouri, St. Louis, St. Charles, and other people around the country who've been exposed by the government and by government negligence to nuclear radiation, number one. | ||
| Number two, clean up the nuclear radiation sites in St. Louis and St. Charles. | ||
| The government has control of those sites now and they need to clean them up. | ||
| They need to clean up Coldwater Creek. | ||
| It's been way too long. | ||
| There's no excuse for it. | ||
| It's been decades. | ||
| The government has the ability, they have the responsibility to clean it up and they need to immediately. | ||
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Because this issue was caused by the federal government, it is up to them and the future president to help solve it. | |
| This leads us to the final question for the future president. | ||
| Will you help to advocate for the safe cleanup of radioactive waste here in Missouri and pass Senator Hawley's bill to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in order to ensure the health and safety for all Americans? | ||
| Be sure to watch all of the winning entries on our website at studentcam.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered. | ||
| C-SPAN's student camp competition challenged middle and high school students nationwide to create documentaries with messages to the new president. | ||
| Our panel of judges evaluated over 1,700 thought-provoking student films on their use of multiple perspectives. | ||
| C-SPAN awarded $100,000 in total cash prizes, and our grand prize of $5,000 goes to Dermot Foley, a 10th grader from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. | ||
| Congratulations to all our winners. | ||
| The top 21 winning entries will air on C-SPAN this month. | ||
| You can also watch all the award-winning documentaries anytime at studentcam.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, Bringing New Democracy Unfiltered. |