[UA] Starting out...

[Chad Underkoffler]

> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 21:33:12 -0600
> From: Tim Toner <thanatos at interaccess.com>
>
> Westmont.  That place sucks.  The only place that sucks harder
> is Darien, IL, its neighbor, and that's only because it had at

> one point the second highest radon level in groundwater in the

> US (number one was a community where plutonium rods were 
> manufactured).

Which may or may not be my hometown, Canonsburg, PA, though it
was uranium ore extraction, not plutonium rods.

There's nothing like having radon detectors all through your
junior high -- Canonsburg: the only town where even the dumbest
kids understand radioactive decomposition.

Note some of the details below for your UA Unexplained type
stuff.

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO9.html
-----------------
When Vitro finished operations in the late fifties, it was ready
to go into the waste-storage business. At least 160,000 tons of
radioactive residues were strewn around Canonsburg, some of them
lining the bottom of a three-acre lagoon where local children
regularly waded in the summer and skated in the winter. 

In the early sixties the AEC allowed the lagoon to be filled in
with tailings. It was an extraordinary decision, since--contrary
to regulations--the government did not own the site. Health
physicist Robert Gallagher, who performed a preliminary survey
there, called the move "incredible." He charged that the AEC
approval was either "a special favor or an oversight of gigantic
magnitude."[70] As for the fill job, Joseph Swiger, project
manager for the dumping, termed it "the worst and sloppiest job
I've ever worked on." It was "morally objectionable," he told
The Pittsburgh Press, "because the material was hazardous."[71] 

[...]

The DOE surveyed the site in 1978 and found that the 125 workers
there were being exposed to radon concentrations fourteen times
above the level officially considered safe.[72] 

[...] 

He was George Mahranus, a mechanic at the park for eight years,
who finally quit in fear. "Towards the end," he told us, "I
could hardly lift anything, couldn't pull on the wrenches. I got
a soreness in my joints. Most of my hair fell out. My front
teeth came loose on me. I never felt like this before in my
life." Mahranus, who was in his forties, spent most of his
working days on the plant floor, fixing tires and engines. "The
radiation never occurred to me till they started drilling at the
site to test for it," he said. "Then I decided to get the hell
out of there." With just ten teeth left in his mouth and an
unexplained lump behind his ear, Mahranus was apprehensive of
doctors confirming his worst fears. "I do feel better since I
left there," he told us. "But now I can't sit long and my
fingertips go numb on me. I always did hard work. But now
there's no way for me to go out and put in eight hours. It would
kill me."[73] 

[...]

At least eighteen other radioactive "hot spots" were identified
around town including a ballfield and an American Legion park. A
spot near the lagoon registered five hundred times normal
background levels. 

Some locals complained that their gardens would not grow; others
were warned not to eat the vegetables that did come up. A rain
barrel at one Canonsburg home showed radiation levels eight
thousand times background, while materials used to build one
house registered 240 times the normal radium count.

-----------------
Also see: 

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/umtra/canonsburg_title1.html


CU

=====
Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com]
Dead Inside: the Roleplaying Game of Loss & Redemption [is coming]
My Writing: http://www.geocities.com/chadu/pubs.html
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/chadu/
"Pardon me while I have a strange interlude." -- Groucho Marx