Flea Market Find -Reply

[FRAMEP@ORAU.GOV]

>at a flea market and bought a couple of bottles imprinted
>with  "Great Radium Spring Water Co, Inc - Pittsfield, MA."  Does anyone
>know  anything about the company (Did they actually use radium in their
>product or did they just have an interesting company name)?  

The name suggests that radium was not added to the water. Instead, it
would seem that the water came from something called a "Great Radium
Spring" or "Radium Spring". The spring might or might not have had
elevated levels of radon and radium, the name means nothing. However,
there is a reasonable chance that the water did have elevated levels of
radioactivity because Pittsfield is quite close to Saratoga and the springs
there were loaded. The collection here has a bottle from the Great
Radium Spring Water Co and I got counts twice background around the
mouth of the bottle. On the other hand, the display case the bottle is kept
in has a little excess radon in it :-)

Paul Frame
Professional Training Programs
ORISE
framep@orau.gov