Re: 700 cancer cases caused by X-rays...Montclair NJ info...

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

It would be intersting to make a compilation of cases like this one, and the brief history of the EPA radon standard, to show how much the policies that supposedly protect public health are the result of some individual decisions that have nothing to do with public health at all.



ruth

ruthweiner@aol.com







>In the Montclair, NJ situation, the source of the contamination was 

>uranium tailings from which US Radium had extracted some radium.  The 

>residual materials were dumped in the local land fill, an abondoned 

>brownstone quarry, along with all the other local trash which included 

>the ash from the coal fires used for local heating at the time.  Based 

>on my sampling of this site using extensive boreholes, I believe that 

>most of the contamination was due not to uranium, but to the propagation 

>of radon gas throughout the waste matrix through the porous ash.  EPA 

>was not interested in this opinion nor was the contractor who was 

>particularly interested in the prospective work of remediation of this 

>danger.  My suggestion of providing a non-porous clay filled trench 

>around the fill site was not interesting to anybody.  EPA would not 

>consider using the latest solid state detectors by which the radium 

>could be differentiated from radon because "it was not in our 

>contract."  As a result, peoples lives were destroyed, homes were 

>demolished and vast sums were used to move innocuous materials to Utah.  

>I remain disgusted with this project.  I feel bad to this day for the 

>people I have hurt whose tears I have seen.

>

>John Andrews

>Knoxville, Tennessee

>

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-- 

Ruth F. Weiner

ruthweiner@aol.com

505-856-5011

(o)505-284-8406



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