WELDON SPRING, Mo. — The St. Louis region's ongoing battle with the federal government over the legacy of nuclear contamination officially became an issue in the 2024 race for governor on Monday.

During an event announced by the campaign of Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, the GOP candidate joined other local advocates and state representatives in St. Charles County to put a warning sign in at the Weldon Spring Interpretive Center, the site of a former uranium facility which bordered Francis Howell High School.

Today, the property, maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy, serves as a containment facility for contamination and is under permanent monitoring.

Last week, Ashcroft and others complained about the signage put together by federal officials but not yet posted, which they said didn't go far enough to warn of the dangers.

By contrast, the sign posted Monday features a radioactive symbol that reads in all caps, “radioactive materials have been found here.” At the bottom of the sign is another caption, “in loving memory of the Missourians we lost to Nuclear Bomb Production,” along with a QR code that sends anyone who scans it to the “Missouri Nuclear Bomb Memorial and Recognition” Facebook page.

The sign was posted around 1 p.m. Within a few hours it had been taken down. 

Kristen Denbow, a 1988 Francis Howell graduate said, “I personally witnessed men in contamination suits measure the radiation while I was in high school. In 2017 I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, there is no cure and one of the causes is radiation exposure.”

Another person, Sandy Austin, shared a story about her son, a 1994 Francis Howell High School graduate who was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme grade four in 2020.

"He succumbed to that disease December 5, 2021, and he left behind his wife and four kids," Austin said. "And I can’t think of any other reason or way that he would be exposed to that much radiation to cause that other than going to school.”

There are informal plans to put the signage up in other locations in St. Charles County and potentially in North St. Louis County, where nuclear weapons waste has contaminated Coldwater Creek and isn't expected to be fully remediated until 2038.

“This has been 75 years without signs. Clearly the federal government doesn’t want to talk about this problem, they do not want to put up signs; they want to lie and hide, and we’re not going to let them hide anymore,” Ashcroft said. 

The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.