ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. - Warning signs about radioactive soil along Coldwater Creek are now up in north St. Louis County after years of an ongoing battle from the public, urging the federal government to put up signs.

"Today is a win. I am so happy and excited about the signs going up in north county that we have fought for a very long time. So today is a win for everybody," Rep. Chantelle Nickson-Clark, District 67, said.

The Army Corps of Engineers will place 80 signs along the 14-mile stretch of the creek. There are 196 locations with contaminated soil along the creek, they said.

"Some within just a couple of inches of surface and some as deep as 17, 18 feet," Col. Andy Pannier, Commander of the St. Louis District Army Corps of Engineers, said.

Locals may see crews out collecting samples too. When remediation starts, they'll replace the new warning signs.

"We already sampled this area before, so that's how we knew to put these signs here. So now they're just delignating further, so it is fine tuning it to get exactly where that material is so when we do remediation we know exactly where to go to do it," Pannier added. "We'll put up a sign that has the trefoil, which has the radioactive symbol most people are commonly used to seeing, because at that point we'll start excavating and we'll expose that material as we remove it."

Sen. Josh Hawley says the signs are long overdue.

"They should have told people decades ago before all of these kids swam, played, and everyone raised families right next to the creek, but now here we are. Late is better than nothing, and they need to put the signs up everywhere, and they need to clean up the creek," he said.