nuclear-news

Concern for workers exposed to radioactive uranium

Answers sought on uranium at Bethlehem site, Buffalo Business First, October 19, 2011 Three federal lawmakers are calling on health officials to continue investigating working conditions that existed for nearly a quarter century at the former Bethlehem Steel site in Lackawanna. The concern of Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo and New York Sens. Senator Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand is that workers risked their health because of the presence of radioactive uranium at the plant

The lawmakers have written to National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Director John Howard to further investigate and report on the clean-up at Bethlehem Steel. The highly radioactive uranium was processed at the Lackawanna site during the Cold War. Former Bethlehem Steel workers attest that the facility where uranium was rolled was not adequately decontaminated until 1976, despite earlier company reports claiming that the plant was cleaned up in 1952, meaning hundreds of additional workers may have been exposed to dangerous residual radiation…. http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/morning_roundup/2011/10/answers-sought-on-uranium-at-bethlehem.html

October 25, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA