WVXU: UC professor examines toxic cleanup at Fernald

University of Cincinnati journalism professor Jenny Wohlfarth spoke to WVXU's Cincinnati Edition about her recent magazine feature on a former uranium processing plant turned nature preserve.

Wohlfarth wrote a story for Cincinnati Magazine in June about the Fernald Preserve in Crosby Township, home to the former Fernald Feed Materials Production Center that processed uranium for nuclear weapons between 1951 and 1989.

The former plant is a federal Superfund site, portions of which remain under obeservation today. But it's also a public nature preserve that is popular with hikers and Cincinnati birders.

The sprawling property was subject to a $4.4 billion cleanup. Today, monitoring wells track plumes of low-level radiation in groundwater that continue to be treated on site.

Wohlfarth examines the role the plant played during the Cold War and efforts by former workers and neighbors to determine how the plant's activities affected their health and the environment.

"This is something in our own back yard where the people affected by it have deep, troubled memories of it," Wohlfarth told Cincinnati Edition host Michael Monks. "Some people might find the preserve on their own as a good place to go hiking. But others might still have a lot of fears about the place."

Wohlfarth said the site represents a fascinating piece of Cincinnati history, a lasting legacy of the Cold War and a monumental federal cleanup.

"There really were a lot of good people who tried to make this right," Wohlfarth said. "It's a pretty good outcome for something that could have had a less-happy ending."