nuclear-news

Staten Island radioactive clean-up drags on

Radiation Cleanup at Park on Staten Island to Take Years  NYT, By LISA W. FODERARO November 25, 2013 The first sign that something was amiss at Great Kills Park, on Staten Island, came in 2005 when a police flyover of New York City detected a positive reading for radioactive material there. The finding, part of a counterterrorism search, did not come as a complete shock. After all, the 488-acre park was the depository for 15 million cubic yards of fill in the 1940s and 1950s, including medical and sanitary waste. The fill was dumped across wetlands to turn marshy areas into usable recreation space. Some of the waste, it turned out, contained radium, a naturally occurring element that was also used for decades in medical treatments, toys, cosmetics and even toothpaste.

At first, the source of radiation appeared to be confined to a small area behind a parking lot next to a field popular for flying model airplanes. The National Park Service, which operates the park, quickly fenced it off. But in the years since, further investigations by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Army Corps of Engineers turned up more hot spots and a fuller, more disturbing picture.

“As we’re getting through this tough job, we’re finding that the contamination is not only in these discrete pockets, but is dispersed in the soil and also at the surface,” said Kathleen Cuzzolino, an environmental protection specialist for the Park Service.
This fall, after another flyover and years of excavations, the Park Service acknowledged that the contamination was more extensive than had originally been believed. Indeed, more than half of the park has shown some degree of radioactivity — virtually the entire area containing the historic fill. Park officials have fenced off 260 acres, including four ball fields, the model airplane field and a popular trail along Hylan Boulevard. Everywhere are signs proclaiming “Danger: Hazard Area.”

As a lengthy process now begins to map the contamination and devise a cleanup plan, the rhythms of family outings in this middle-class corner of Staten Island have been interrupted.Baseball and soccer leagues that used Great Kills have relocated, and so have the fliers of the model planes.

“This is potentially a very dangerous situation,” said Representative Michael G. Grimm, whose congressional district includes the park, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. “The last thing I want is to have anyone or their children get sick or hurt because of this contamination.”…….

November 26, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA