Project
The Legacy of Luckey
Workers and residents were told a Cold War weapons plant was safe. It wasn't.
LUCKEY, Ohio — Village resident and former mayor Belinda Brooks wanted to know if illnesses in the community could be traced back to the drinking water.
Her son, Aaron, asked officials if they thought The Blade’s recent well water testing results suggested a potential health risk to the town.
Alexandra Evans, a 28-year-old who grew up in Luckey, said she was upset to learn that the former Cold War weapons at the edge of the village could still be affecting the health of local residents today.
“We have been failed by the systems that were supposed to protect us,” she said. “We are not just statistics. We are neighbors, parents, children, and friends. And now something has to change.”
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These were some of the concerns expressed at Wednesday’s regular village council meeting.
The village has been wrestling with the possibility of contaminated well water since The Blade recently published results of its comprehensive testing in the community. Those results, published online April 25, documented how samples of well water from homes, businesses, and public places showed radioactivity at least 10 times greater than what the federal government says is normal for the area.
Luckey Mayor Cory Panning opened the meeting by explaining that the village has been in contact with state agencies on the next steps.
“We’ve been informed by the Ohio EPA, the Ohio Department of Health, and the Wood County Department of Health that there is not an immediate concern for our drinking water,” he said.
Mayor Panning encouraged residents to test radon in their homes and explained how they could order free test kits from the state health department.
“If you’ve never tested for radon, it’s probably something you should be requesting,” he said.
Wood County Health Commissioner Ben Robison was present at Wednesday’s council meeting to take questions from Luckey residents and explain next steps.
“U.S. EPA says there isn’t a safe level of radon in indoor air,” Mr. Robison added. “We encourage every resident, not just Luckey residents, to conduct a radon test.”
He said that radon occurs naturally in the environment, though he would not speculate on whether the levels The Blade found could be connected to the contaminants at the former Cold War weapons site.
“Our state departments are taking this really seriously,” Mr. Robison said. “We depend on them to understand the data that informs risk.”
“I want to say today,” he added, “that the information that we have does not demonstrate a health risk, even from what The Blade has reported. But it has opened a question.”
Earlier Wednesday, state regulators announced that they have begun testing local water for contaminants and that more sampling is on the way.
Just hours before Luckey Village Council meeting, officials from the Ohio EPA said that samples from nine public locations, such as the local library, have been collected. The samples are to be tested at an independent lab, with the results expected in a month, officials said.
The testing is in response to a recent Blade investigation that found high levels of radioactivity in the drinking water in and around the Wood County village.
The year-long investigation was published in the newspaper’s April 27 and May 4 editions.
Officials from the Ohio Department of Health, which is taking the lead on testing private homes, said they are distributing a fact sheet around the village, in part, to alert residents who might be interested in having their water tested.
Speaking at a news conference at the village’s largest public park, Amy Klei, chief of the Ohio EPA’s Division of Drinking and Ground Waters, referenced The Blade’s findings.
"With all of the information we have reviewed to date, the data we have in hand, we have not seen any results that indicate it is not safe to drink,” she said. “Out of an abundance of caution, when it comes to drinking water, we will take those extra steps to do follow-up testing to be sure.”
Luckey-area resident Karina Hahn-Claydon said she was grateful that the state “stepped up to the plate.”
“We all know someone that we wonder, ‘Were they affected by long-term exposure to chemicals?” she said. “Hopefully, the water testing will tell.”
Ms. Hahn-Claydon said she hopes the state officials will “cross their t’s and dot their i’s” and completely investigate the area.
For 80 years, Luckey has been home to a 44-acre tract of land that once was one of the most critical defense sites in the nation and now is one of the most toxic. Built by the War Department in 1942, the property has housed a magnesium plant for the Manhattan Project and, in the 1950s, a beryllium production facility for America's Cold War weapons programs.
Almost all the old buildings are gone, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been removing thousands of tons of tainted soil from the property.
To gauge whether the property was affecting the nearby village, a Blade reporter collected water samples between the spring of 2024 and January and sent them to Eurofins Environment Testing, an accredited lab in St. Louis. The lab analyzed the samples for radioactivity and other contaminants. The Blade testing was funded by the Pulitzer Center, a nonprofit organization offering investigative reporting grants.
One sample from Eastwood Middle School showed radioactivity 10 times above normal background levels. Another sample from the Luckey Library was 45 times higher. A sample from a water pump near athletic fields was 1,731 times greater than normal.
The radioactivity The Blade detected was primarily bismuth-214, which decays from the radioactive gas radon-222. Radiation experts agree that high levels of bismuth-214 suggest that high levels of radon are present, too. Radon exposure is the leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers.
