You said it was a Newsday article in the Afghan caves? They did follow the story on Sylvania nuclear fuel plant. See my post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1013726/posts?page=9213#9213 And this one:
http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzbnl0509,0,506302,print.story Memos Show Plant Shipped Tainted Goods
By Mark Harrington
Staff Writer
May 9, 2003
In October 1965 Brookhaven Lab staffers were kicking the tires on used equipment at the former Sylvania Electric nuclear fuel production facility in Hicksville when the first red flags were raised.
They discovered that a forklift, truck, a large boiler and even cafeteria tables -- items they were planning to ship back to Brookhaven -- all exhibited elevated levels of uranium contamination, according to BNL memos obtained by Newsday.
"Cafeteria equipment was stored adjacent to grossly contaminated equipment," wrote a BNL staffer. Worse, some items BNL did not test already had been sent to other companies and the Hicksville School District, which received lockers, floor waxers, ladders and fire equipment. It's unclear which schools took the items, or if it contained similar levels of uranium contamination, which BNL officials stress is low-risk. A Hicksville school district spokeswoman didn't return a call seeking comment. Former superintendent Edward Finn referred questions back to the district.
Verizon, which now owns the facility and has begun overseeing its cleanup, said there's nothing to indicate children were at risk.
"The suggestion that Sylvania sent materials to a school that were hazardous to the health of schoolchildren is without any support," said Verizon spokeswoman Sharon Cohen-Hagar, pointing to one Brookhaven memo referring to tools it received as being "in no way a health hazard."
Today, government and health officials say the Sylvania site, adjacent to Cantiague Park, poses no safety hazards to residents.
In lawsuits, residents have claimed the Hicksville plant caused hundreds of them to become ill and, in some cases, die. Cohen-Hagar said, "We have found nothing to support the allegations in the lawsuits," and she asserted that the current levels of contaminants at the site "pose no current health risk."
Charles Schaefer, radiation protection specialist at Brookhaven, said the lab considers so-called disintegration-per-minute levels of 1,000 to be safe. One area of the Sylvania facility BNL experts tested in 1965 showed dpm levels of 40,000, according to the memo. With readings at that level, the only concern would be if the material was breathed or ingested, though he still downplayed the risks. Even at the higher level "they are not very big numbers," Schaefer said.
Mary Olsen, a director and nuclear waste specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, an environmental watchdog group, said it's "perfectly possible" the items donated to the schools bore the same levels of contamination, and she noted that acceptable standards for exposure to radiation are based on adult men, not children. For its own part, Brookhaven Lab, which took shipment of thousands of pieces of equipment, would become inundated with uranium contamination, according to the memos.
The introduction of the equipment from Sylvania set off a stir when it was fully realized inside Brookhaven Labs in 1966. In a Jan. 3, 1996 memo, an official described the facility as "engulfed" in radiation contamination from the items. Stressing at the time that the discovery was not a health hazard, Brookhaven nevertheless decided to "quarantine" two buildings to begin an intensive cleanup of the thousands of tools it had acquired.
While acknowledging terms in the memos might have sounded drastic, Mona Rowe, a BNL spokeswoman, downplayed their significance. The quarantine, she said, prevented contaminated items from mixing with cleaned ones. Much of the cleanup work was done with soap and water, Shaefer said, adding he wasn't sure if the clean-up workers wore respirators. Still, officials at the time indicate it was a massive undertaking.
"It was the largest decontamination effort that the Laboratory has yet undertaken," a BNL official wrote. " ... We must all work at the job of preventing such a colossal mess from happening again."