The Non-Financial Ledger: What Dollars Cannot Measure

Hazelwood, Missouri is a working-class suburb in St. Louis County. It has ranch houses with chain-link fences, small businesses in low-slung industrial buildings, and families who have lived on the same streets for generations. It is not the kind of place that gets named in federal environmental enforcement actions. Except it has been, repeatedly, because of what was buried beneath it.

The contamination documented in this case originated not from some local polluter acting alone but from the United States government’s own nuclear weapons program. The Manhattan Engineer District and the Atomic Energy Commission processed uranium ore in St. Louis. The residues and wastes from that processing moved, spread, and migrated outward from the original processing sites. They ended up at places like the Hazelwood Interim Storage Site. They ended up at Latty Avenue. They ended up, according to a federal court filing, under the existing structures on Jarboe Realty’s property at 9200 Latty Avenue, where they sit today.

The people who live near this corridor did not consent to this. They were not told about it when it mattered. The contamination the federal government calls “FUSRAP Waste Material” includes radiologically contaminated soils, sediments, surface water, and groundwater, the stuff that exists in the ground beneath neighborhoods, beneath driveways, beneath the walls of buildings people work in every day. It is not abstract. It migrates. It moves through soil and water. It does not respect property lines.

Eighty-eight million dollars of taxpayer money has been deployed to clean up this corridor. That money came from ordinary Americans. It did not come from the company that owns contaminated land. Jarboe Realty’s contribution to that cleanup, after years of negotiation and financial document review, is $769,722. The federal government reviewed Jarboe’s finances and concluded the company lacks the ability to pay more. The Jarboe family has owned this land since at least 1979, when a property assessment appeal filed by Enos Dean Jarboe for 9200 Latty Avenue appears in the financial documents submitted to the Department of Justice. The land sat contaminated. The business continued. The cleanup bill went to the public.

There is no dollar amount in this consent decree for the workers who spent years inside buildings constructed above radioactive residue. There is no line item for the uncertainty that families near Coldwater Creek, which runs through the contaminated zone on the site map, have carried for decades. There is no settlement fund for the community. The $769,722 goes directly to USACE, to be used for cleanup costs at any FUSRAP site. Not one cent is directed to the people who lived through this.

The decree formally acknowledges that the Army Corps’ cleanup work has not removed all hazardous substances from the Jarboe property. Residual contamination remains under buildings that are still standing. The institutional controls being imposed, deed restrictions, access rights for federal inspectors, land use limitations, are the government’s admission that the contamination cannot be fully removed. The land will carry that label permanently, in the public record, for every future buyer or tenant to discover if they know to look.

Legal Receipts: What the Court Documents Actually Say

The following quotes are taken verbatim from Case 4:25-cv-00565, the Consent Decree filed April 23, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. No paraphrasing. No spin. Just the words the lawyers and the government signed their names to.

“The USACE has incurred a total of $88,095,734 in response costs at the portions of the Site known as the Futura Property, the HISS Property, and the Latty Avenue VPs known as 10K530076, VP-01(L), VP-02(L), VP-03(L), VP-04(L), VP-05(L), VP-06(L), and VP-40A East.”

— Consent Decree, Background Section D

• This confirms that over $88 million in public funds was spent specifically on properties adjacent to or including Jarboe’s 9200 Latty Avenue address. The “Latty Avenue VPs” are Vicinity Properties on Latty Avenue, the same street as the Jarboe property.
• This is the baseline cost of cleaning up what Jarboe is being held liable for contributing to. Jarboe’s $769,722 payment represents 0.87% of that figure.

“The Parties acknowledge and agree that the response actions taken by the USACE have not removed all hazardous substances present on the Settling Defendant’s property and that residual contamination remains underneath several existing structures.”

— Consent Decree, Background Section K

• This is the most critical admission in the entire document. Both the U.S. government and Jarboe Realty formally acknowledge, in a federal court filing, that radioactive and hazardous contamination is still present beneath buildings on Jarboe’s property at the time this decree was signed.
• The phrase “several existing structures” means these are active buildings, currently standing, currently in use or capable of use, with contamination underneath them that has not been removed.
• The reason the contamination was not removed is made explicit elsewhere in the decree: the structures themselves are still there. The cleanup could not reach what sits beneath them without demolishing buildings the property owner controls.

“The United States has reviewed the Financial Information and Insurance Information submitted by Settling Defendant to determine whether Settling Defendant is financially able to pay response costs incurred and to be incurred at the Site. Based upon this Financial Information and Insurance Information, the United States has determined that Settling Defendant has limited financial ability to pay for response costs incurred and to be incurred at the Site.”

— Consent Decree, Background Section I

• The government reviewed years of tax returns, balance sheets, profit and loss statements, bank accounts, investment statements, and intercompany loan summaries before accepting this settlement. This was not a fast negotiation; financial documents span 2016 to 2022.
• “Limited financial ability” is the government’s legal rationale for accepting 0.87 cents on every dollar of cleanup cost. The decree does not specify what financial threshold disqualifies a party from this reduced settlement, nor what the full assessed liability would have been.

“Settling Defendant is a responsible party under Section 107(a) of CERCLA, 42 U.S.C. § 9607(a), and is jointly and severally liable for response costs incurred and to be incurred at the Site.”

— Consent Decree, Background Section F(4)

• Joint and several liability under CERCLA means Jarboe Realty can be held responsible for the entire cost of cleanup, not just a proportional share. The government chose to settle for a fraction of that potential liability.
• This language confirms that Jarboe Realty’s legal status was that of a full responsible party, not merely a neighboring landowner swept into a case by proximity. The company owned the contaminated land.

“FUSRAP Waste Material means soil, sediment, surface water, ground water, and structures contaminated as a result of Manhattan Engineer District/Atomic Energy Commission uranium ore or residue processing activities.”

— Consent Decree, Section IV Definitions

“Mr. Rodney Jarboe and Mr. Jeffrey Jarboe (the ‘Guarantors’) are owners of, among other companies, Jarboe Realty & Investment Co., Inc. and both Rodney and Jeffrey Jarboe agree to guarantee all payment obligations of Settling Defendant in this Consent Decree.”

— Consent Decree, Background Section J

• The individual owners of Jarboe Realty are personally on the hook for the payment. If the company defaults, Rodney Jarboe and Jeffrey Jarboe are personally liable, and the government can pursue them in any appropriate legal forum without challenge.
• This personal guaranty structure means the Jarboe family’s personal assets, not just the corporate entity, back the settlement agreement. The decree binds their heirs and assigns as well.

Societal Impact Mapping: What This Site Has Actually Done

Environmental Degradation

The contamination at this site did not stay in one place. The decree’s own definitions confirm it spread through multiple environmental pathways.

• FUSRAP Waste Material is defined in the decree to include soil, sediment, surface water, and groundwater. All four environmental pathways are confirmed contaminated or at risk at this site.
• Coldwater Creek, a waterway visible on the site map running through the North St. Louis County Sites boundary, passes through the cleanup zone. Creek systems carry contaminated sediment downstream, expanding the radius of impact beyond the original processing and storage sites.
• The decree explicitly notes that contamination migrated “to, from, or at the Site” as a defining characteristic of FUSRAP Waste Material. Migration means the contamination moved. It reached neighboring properties, which is why the site map shows dozens of Vicinity Properties, numbered VP-01 through VP-63 and beyond, scattered across a wide residential and industrial corridor.
• The 2005 Record of Decision, which governs the entire cleanup, was amended in a December 3, 2021 Non-significant Change, suggesting the scope of the affected area continued to be revised more than 16 years after the original cleanup plan was signed. The contamination problem was larger, or more persistent, than initially mapped.
• Residual contamination beneath existing structures on the Jarboe property cannot be reached without demolishing those structures. This is a documented, permanent limitation of the cleanup as currently structured.

Public Health

Radiological contamination from uranium ore processing carries specific, well-documented health risks that bear directly on the population living and working in this corridor.

• Uranium ore processing residues contain radium, thorium, and uranium decay products. Exposure pathways include inhalation of contaminated dust, ingestion of contaminated water, and direct gamma radiation from contaminated soil. All three pathways are relevant to a residential and light-industrial corridor.
• The Institutional Controls required by this decree, meaning restrictions on land use, are the government’s explicit acknowledgment that current conditions at 9200 Latty Avenue pose an unacceptable risk to human health if the property is used without restrictions. The decree states that Jarboe must “refrain from using the Affected Property in any manner that USACE determines will pose an unacceptable risk to human health or to the environment because of exposure to FUSRAP Waste Material.”
• Workers in the buildings currently standing above confirmed residual contamination are present on the property under conditions the federal government has deemed potentially hazardous. The decree does not require those structures to be vacated or demolished; it requires access for inspectors and restrictions on future use changes.
• The North St. Louis County Sites encompass the St. Louis Airport Site, the Hazelwood Interim Storage Site, and the Futura Coating Company Site, a cluster of contaminated properties near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in a densely populated suburban county. The proximity to an airport means soil disturbance, construction, and traffic patterns in the area are ongoing and persistent.
• The decree preserves the government’s right to reopen the case and seek additional costs if conditions “previously unknown” are discovered and the remedial action is found to be “not protective of human health or the environment.” This reservation clause is the government’s own acknowledgment that the current cleanup may prove insufficient.

Economic Inequality

The financial structure of this settlement transfers the bulk of the cleanup burden from a private landowner to American taxpayers, while the landowner retains the underlying asset.

• Jarboe Realty still owns 9200 Latty Avenue. The settlement does not require the property to be transferred to public ownership or demolished. The company retains the real estate asset while having paid 0.87% of the public cleanup costs attributable to adjacent and overlapping properties.
• The financial documents submitted to DOJ span Jarboe Realty as well as two affiliated entities: Creative Polymers, Inc. and Replications Unlimited. These companies share ownership and financial relationships with Jarboe Realty, as evidenced by intercompany loan summaries and shared Commerce Bank accounts cited in the decree’s financial appendix. The settlement covers the entire Jarboe family enterprise.
• The government’s finding of “limited financial ability” was reached after reviewing tax returns, balance sheets, a TD Ameritrade collateral account statement, property tax statements, and ownership summaries for multiple affiliated entities from 2016 to 2022. The Jarboe owners also submitted a presentation titled “DOJ Meeting, May 18th 2023” and a chart titled “Owners Overall Compensation Between Companies, 2010-2022.” The government accepted their financial framing.
• Stipulated penalties for late payment are $1,000 per day for the first 30 days and $2,500 per day thereafter. These penalty rates are the primary enforcement mechanism ensuring the $769,722 gets paid. For context, that means a company that pays 90 days late would owe roughly $223,000 in additional penalties, still a fraction of the total cleanup cost.
• The $769,722 payment is deposited into a general FUSRAP cleanup fund and “will be available for response action costs for any FUSRAP site.” It does not go to a community fund, a health monitoring program for residents, or any form of remediation specific to the ongoing contamination beneath Jarboe’s buildings. Community members receive no direct benefit from this settlement.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now? Who Is Responsible and What You Can Do

The Consent Decree is a court order. Jarboe Realty must pay, record deed restrictions, and allow federal inspectors access. Noncompliance triggers escalating daily penalties. But the settlement also closes out the company’s primary CERCLA liability, and the contamination under those buildings stays put.

Named Parties and Corporate Leadership

• Jarboe Realty & Investment Co., Inc., the settling defendant, is located at 9200 Latty Avenue, Hazelwood, Missouri 63042. This is also the address of the contaminated property itself.
• Rodney Jarboe, personal guarantor and co-owner, is named in the decree and personally bound by all payment obligations.
• Jeffrey Jarboe, personal guarantor and co-owner, is likewise named and personally bound.
• Affiliated entities Creative Polymers, Inc. and Replications Unlimited appear in the financial appendix. Their finances were reviewed as part of the settlement assessment but are not named as defendants in this action.

Regulatory Watchlist

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE): the primary regulator and cleanup authority for FUSRAP sites. USACE oversees compliance with the decree, conducts site inspections, and must approve all institutional controls. Contact point per the decree: Ms. Nicki Fatherly, nicki.fatherly@usace.army.mil.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: the prosecuting authority. The ENRD’s Environmental Enforcement Section brought this case. Reference DJ Number 90-11-2-08259/3 in any public inquiry.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): co-signatory on the original 2005 Record of Decision and party to the 1990 Federal Facility Agreement governing this cleanup. EPA Region 7 has oversight jurisdiction.
• U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): originally administered FUSRAP and shares historical responsibility for the contamination. DOE’s role in this cleanup is referenced throughout the decree’s definitions.
• Missouri Department of Natural Resources: the State of Missouri is referenced as a potential grantee of institutional controls in the decree. State environmental regulators can be contacted for public records on this site.

Actions for Residents, Organizers, and Concerned Citizens

• Request the administrative record. Under CERCLA and the Freedom of Information Act, the full administrative record for the North St. Louis County Sites cleanup is a public document. Submit a FOIA request to USACE’s FUSRAP program office requesting all site assessment reports, sampling data, and monitoring records for 9200 Latty Avenue and the Latty Avenue Vicinity Properties.
• Track the institutional controls recording. Within 15 days of the decree’s effective date, Jarboe Realty must submit a draft deed notice to USACE. Within 30 days, they must submit title insurance evidence. Monitor St. Louis County land records (available through the County Recorder of Deeds) for the filing of these controls on parcel 9200 Latty Avenue. If those filings do not appear, that is noncompliance with a federal court order.
• Connect with existing Coldwater Creek advocacy networks. Residents in the North St. Louis County corridor have organized for years around FUSRAP contamination. Organizations focused on Coldwater Creek contamination, the waterway running through this cleanup zone, have documented community health impacts and pushed for expanded testing. Find and support these groups through local St. Louis County environmental justice coalitions.
• Demand health monitoring programs. Contact Missouri’s Congressional delegation and the EPA Region 7 office to demand a publicly funded health monitoring program for residents living in the vicinity of FUSRAP sites in St. Louis County. The settlement contains no such provision; it must be pushed for separately.
• Attend the public comment period. The decree was lodged with the court for at least 30 days of public comment before entry. If this window is still open, submit written comments to the DOJ at Eescdcopy.enrd@usdoj.gov referencing DJ Number 90-11-2-08259/3. Public comments are part of the official record and the government must respond to them.
• Monitor the payment deadline. Jarboe Realty must pay $769,722 within 30 days of the decree’s effective date. Payment is made at pay.gov. If that payment is not confirmed in court filings within 30 days of the judge’s entry of the decree, stipulated penalties begin accruing immediately. Public court dockets for Case 4:25-cv-00565 are accessible through PACER.