St. Louis-area residents make plea for compensation for illnesses tied to nuclear contamination

People impacted by nuclear contamination in the St. Louis region are urging federal lawmakers to approve a plan to spend billions of dollars to compensate Americans exposed to radiation by the government. Democratic U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and several people who lived along Coldwater Creek spoke Friday at a news conference to call for an extension of the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Last month, the Senate approved legislation that would expand RECA to include Missouri and other states adversely affected by the nation’s nuclear weapons program. But the compensation plan was excluded from a spending bill. It could still pass as a stand-alone bill, or be attached to another piece of legislation.