idaho slated for radioactive waste

Idaho Slated to be Navy Dumping Ground

By Sharon Fisher, 7-25-08

Still dealing with the fallout of being a repository for contaminated sand from Kuwait, Idaho is reportedly slated to be the dumping ground for literal fallout: radioactive remnants from a World War II-era Navy shipyard, according to a San Francisco alternative newsweekly.

“Currently, the Navy is proposing to excavate soil from IR-07 and IR-18, including known mercury and methane spots, and ship it to dumps in Idaho and Utah,” said the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in a July 16 story.

IR-07 and IR-18 are two plots of land identified by a 2004 Navy report as being dumps for radioluminescent devices and, perhaps, debris from sandblasting dry docks at the Hunter’s Point Shipyard that had been used to decontaminate 79 ships that had been exposed to a 1946 nuclear test.
“[C]esium-137, cobalt-60, plutonium-239, radium-226 (from radioactive decay of uranium-238) and strontium-90 could be present in underground drains and sewers,” the article read.

Environmental activists in the Bay Area are protesting the move, suggesting instead that the parcel be capped to prevent migration of the contamination.

“Pamela Calvert, deputy director of Literacy for Environmental Justice, told the Guardian she’s worried about shipping the contamination elsewhere,” the article continued. “‘I’m really concerned that we don’t solve problems in Bayview by creating ones for another community,’ Calvert said. ‘It’s best to deal with it here. There is no such thing as “away.” It’s someone else’s backyard.’”

Ours.

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