[ RadSafe ] depleted uranium holds fast in Colonie, NY

[Fred Dawson]

Fascinating as I am sure DU is, as a subject to study; I would be most
interested to know what other industrial pollutants are present in this
environment such as asbestos, cadmium, lead, dioxins etc and what risk they
present relative to the very small quantities of DU that may be present in
the environment.   


Fred Dawson 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Dr. Min-Sook Kim
Sent: 16 July 2007 23:05
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] depleted uranium holds fast in Colonie, NY

Another DU story from today's TImes Union, Albany based newespaper. 

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=606387&category=FRONTPG&B
CCode=HOME&newsdate=7/16/2007

Depleted uranium holds fast in Colonie


British researcher finds traces years after weapons plant closed By JORDAN
CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Monday, July 16, 2007


COLONIE -- Ph.D. student Nicholas Lloyd traveled from England to a dusty
patch off Central Avenue last summer hunting for terribly small pieces of
New York's polluted military-industrial past.

He found them -- microscopic specs containing depleted uranium that he
believes may provide clues to how this heavy metal component of modern
weaponry behaves on battlefields a world away.

Used for the first time on a large scale in the 1991 Gulf War, depleted
uranium weapons have been blamed for sickening soldiers exposed to them --
even though the military says the danger is limited.

Research by Lloyd and others shows that Albany-area residents may have been
exposed for decades before the first shot was ever fired.

While substantial questions remain about depleted uranium's effect on
humans, Lloyd and others suspect Colonie, home to a long-demolished
munitions plant, may be a good place to look.

"This is a natural laboratory here to understand that problem," said John
G. Arnason, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences at the University at Albany.

"There are very few places in the world where you can do this other than
here," said Arnason, who also has studied contamination from the factory
operated by Houston-based NL Industries, formerly the National Lead Co.
"Not only did you have the plant here that was doing the polluting, but you
had a population, unfortunately, that was exposed to it."

Lloyd's research, in cooperation with the British Geological Survey, is not
a health study. But his preliminary results show that nearly a
quarter-century after NL's Central Avenue plant closed, some of the uranium
oxide particles it spewed over surrounding neighborhoods remains -- in the
soil and in homes. Some linger, he said, in a form that could be inhaled --
a state quite different from uranium that exists naturally in the air, soil
and water.

"It spread further and it stayed around decades longer than anyone
thought," said Anne Rabe, co-chairwoman of Community Concerned About NL
Industries.

Lloyd discovered that depleted uranium contamination was detected as far as
3.5 miles from the plant and that uranium oxide particles found closer to
it are comparable to those emitted by depleted uranium weapons.

The primary concern is not direct radiation. Instead, the risk stems from
inhaling the particles, formed when the depleted uranium is burned and
combines with oxygen. From the lungs, they can be absorbed into the blood
and travel to the kidneys.

In the 1960s and '70s, the factory just west of city limits, which made
armor-piercing bullets and counterweights, is believed to have emitted as
much as five tons of uranium into the environment.

A byproduct of the manufacture of nuclear fuel, depleted uranium in weapons
burns extremely hot and sprays dust. The weapons have been blamed for a
range of ailments, including maladies known collectively as Gulf War
syndrome.

But research on the dust's health effects on humans has been limited. The
federal government has studied 80 military personnel exposed to depleted
uranium through friendly fire during the Gulf War and detected elevated
levels of uranium in their urine but found no kidney damage or other
uranium-related health problems, according to the Pentagon. The federal
Centers for Disease Control has said exposure to high levels of depleted
uranium is "not known to cause cancer."

But neighbors and workers at the plant who were potentially exposed to the
dust have, for years, blamed the smoke belched from its stacks for sickness
and death among them. They have sought a block-by-block health study, and
Lloyd believes his research could provide a baseline for that.

The state Health Department has conducted several studies of NL pollution,
including comparing lead levels in the blood of children who live near the
plant to those who don't. None of the studies conclusively linked the
pollution to illness, said department spokesman Jeffrey Hammond.

Lloyd, 28, a student at the University of Leicester, set out to study how
the molecules known as uranium oxide -- some small enough to travel to the
deepest parts of human lungs -- behave in the environment.

Working with Arnason and local volunteers, Lloyd took more than 200 samples
of soil that had been exposed to the elements -- some of it on land
adjacent to the Thruway and Northway -- as well as dust from sheltered
areas in homes and commercial buildings.

Of those samples taken from soil already decontaminated by the Army Corps
of Engineers, none of the concentrations he detected exceed safety
standards. The Army Corps is the federal agency charged with cleaning up
the 12-acre site where all the company's buildings were demolished. The
two-decade federal project is expected to conclude this summer with a price
tag in excess of $175 million.

Rabe and others are eager for information on the concentrations of uranium
detected inside homes -- data Lloyd has yet to tabulate.

Using mass spectrometry, Lloyd was able to prove the presence of depleted
uranium. Finding traces of depleted uranium up to 3.5 miles away was not
surprising, said Arnason, after it was revealed in the 1990s that air
filters at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna and the Kesselring
Site nuclear facility in Milton detected contamination from NL Industries
some 25 miles away.

Arnason, who has studied uranium contamination around the nearby Patroon
Creek, said he has tried for years to get funding for the kind of research
Lloyd and his colleagues are doing.

"I find it ironic that the Brits came over here to study it," Arnason said
of the Colonie site. "There are no agencies here that are specifically
funding nondefense-related research on depleted uranium."

Lloyd plans to submit his work for peer review next year and hopes it will
help move understanding of depleted uranium past speculation.

"I think that probably too much has been said in the media that isn't based
on hard evidence," he said. "I don't want to add to that."


Min-Sook Kim, Ph.D.
New York State Department of Health
E-Mail : msk02 at health.state.ny.us
TEL: (518) 402-7650
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