Enemy Within

Enemy Within: For many in Kansas City, the acquisition of the Bannister Federal Complex by a private developer represented an innovative effort to redeem a dangerous brownfield. But sick workers wondered if the site could ever really be cleaned as more revelations surfaced about the plant's toxic legacy.

Enemy Within: If the Kansas City Plant was not a "dirty" site, then why were its workers getting sick and dying prematurely? Government summaries of the manufacturing history reveal the Kansas City Plant worked with an array of radioactive materials over several decades. "The problem is the [plant] workers were not told, and they were not adequately protected," said David M. Manuta, a consultant with expertise in chemical industrial processes and radioactive material. "Kansas City was considered non-nuclear. And yet we know otherwise."

Enemy Within: During the decades of the Cold War, the Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies employed hundreds of thousands of Americans in more than 350 secretive, hazardous worksites across the country. Employees were not always safe or cared for.