Atomic Homefront is being presented as part of the AFI Docs Film Festival 2017. Visit the official site for more information.

"Peril is the mirror we hold up to ourselves. It forces us to ask what it means to be human. It focuses our attention on the shortness and uncertainty of our lives. We imagine the worst — death, the death of our children, the destruction of our way of life."
— Robert Wuthnow in Be Very Afraid

Two suburban communities outside St. Louis had no knowledge of the dumping of Manhattan Project uranium on a large landfill which was leaking dangerous radionuclides into homes, gardens, public parks, and businesses. For the last seven years, a subsurface fire has moved into an area where radioactive waste is buried and it could cause further catastrophes.

In our review of Lois Gibbs and The Love Canal, we wrote about the heroism of a shy and principled middle-class housewife who led a crusade to convince the government to relocate families threatened by toxic chemical pollution in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls in the late 1970s. After learning of the health hazards of chemical wastes, Gibbs gathers signatures for a petition to close a school. Then the New York State Health Department made a decision to relocate the 239 families closest to the dump. This crusader then battled to have the remaining 710 families relocated and compensated for the loss of their homes.

In Atomic Homefront, another housewife fights for environmental justice in the endangered community where she lives. At one point, she is thrilled to welcome Lois Gibbs to her group of moms-turned-advocates as they travel to Washington in order to make their case with the head of the EPA which has been slow to respond to the widespread cancer deaths and the dangers posed by the underground fire.

Rebecca Cammisa directs this hard-hitting documentary which graphically depicts the perils of this environmental disaster. We empathize with the members of these suburban communities who watch helplessly as their children and other family members die. They also have to cope with the destruction of their way of life and the loss of value of their homes. We left the theater angered over the EPA's irresponsible handling of this catastrophe — and concerned that the downsized EPA in the Trump administration will be even less responsive.