© National Park Service



Children Are Especially Vulnerable

Government Likely Still Underestimates the Problem

Initial Explanation Doesn't Hold Up

But Where is the Radioactive Material From?

Problem Extends Past Staten Island

Not Just Radium Chemical

© Raymond Bucko, SJ / Flickr



Time to Own Up

In August 2005, the New York Police Department, with the Department of Energy, conducted an anti-terrorism radiation flyover survey. The survey was intended to provide a baseline of radiological activity, in order to catch a suspicious construction of a dirty bomb.They didn't find a dirty bomb—but there was plenty of radiological activity.The Park, more than 500 acres of woods surrounding softball and soccer fields and a marina, was constructed from garbage dumped in the bay between 1944 and 1946. Unregulated and illegal dumping has a long history in New York City.The radium is the legacy of nuclear weapons production coupled with a cavalier attitude towards the odorless, tasteless and invisible threat posed by radioactivity."This is potentially a very dangerous situation," said former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) in 2013 , whose congressional district includes the park. "The last thing I want is to have anyone or their children get sick or hurt because of this contamination."According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), children are more susceptible than adults to radiation because they are still growing. Their cells are rapidly dividing, which provides a greater opportunity for radiation to disrupt the process than in adults., says international consultant Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a spokesperson for Radioactive Waste Management Associates, which works on cleaning up radioactive waste dumps. Radium is chemically similar to calcium and has an affinity for bone where it irradiates the bone marrow.Resnikoff told WhoWhatWhy that walking through Great Kills is likeHe added that children playing on the site could "get material on their hands and wipe their faces" causing "incidental ingestion" of radium.The government measurements probably underestimate the actual radiation levels in Great Kills, according to Resnikoff."One foot of dirt can shield up to 98% of gamma radiation" given off by the radium, he said, adding that there could be significant levels of radium buried under the soil. Dr. Resnikoff said the diffuse nature of the contamination in the park indicates a lot of the contamination may be uranium ore left over from the Manhattan Project days.A WhoWhatWhy investigation has shown that it is likely that the material stems from the World War II nuclear weapons program and was dumped into a public landfill by radium companies that were little more than public fronts for the United States government during its effort to build the first atomic bomb.In 1939 the United States, convinced it was in a race with Germany for the bomb, purchased all the uranium it could find. Belgian owners of the ore coveted the phenomenally valuable radium that existed side-by-side with the uranium. When the price of radium collapsed a few years later as better and safer sources of radioactivity were developed, the excess and unneeded radium would end up in the public waste stream.More radioactive "hotspots" were reported in Great Kills in 2007 as the government dug up contaminated soil and medical devices used in past decades to apply radium to cancerous tumors.By 2009, half the park was closed indefinitely as more and more contamination was unearthed. In 2014 a community meeting was held in Staten Island with the National Park Service (NPS),"As we're getting through this tough job, we're finding that the contamination is not only in these discrete pockets, but is dispersed in the soil and also at the surface," Kathleen Cuzzolino, an environmental protection specialist for the Park Service told The New York Times in 2013. The NYPD initially said that the radioactivity in Great Kills was caused by "industrial" activities before the park was built. As the extent of the contamination was revealed, that story became less and less believable. The government embarked on a decade-long study of the contamination. What began as a few hotspots around discarded medical waste gradually evolved into a widespread and expensive problem.After another flyover earlier this year, a new five-year study was announced under CERCLA, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. Known as the Superfund, it is the legal mechanism for cleaning up some of the nation's most polluted areas. During cleanup, the areas contaminated by radiation remain closed off to the public.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) public health assessment categorized the radioactive contamination at Great Kills as an "indeterminate public health hazard." That means the agency doesn't have enough information to make a "professional judgement" on the potential damage to the public at Great Kills.The report also warns that radiation exposure on children requires special considerations. Yet despite the construction of 18,000 feet of "perimeter fencing" and warning signs against trespassing, huge gaps within walking distance of playgrounds in this residential neighborhood allow easy access to the closed-off areas.An investigation by WhoWhatWhy is beginning to fill in some of the unknowns about where the radioactive material plaguing Great Kills came from. The story begins with a company called Radium Chemical, and its main chemical squeeze, radium, a highly radioactive element that glows in the dark. Radium Chemical made a product called "Undark."In the 1920s, young girls were employed by the factory to paint luminescent dials using radium. Supervisors ordered the women to lick the thin paint brushes after each stroke to keep the tips pointed and the strokes precise.The women realized something was wrong when horrific tumors began to grow in their jaws. Heading straight for the bone, the radium replaced calcium and caused the lower jaws of the woman to literally fall apart. The young women, many as they lay dying, filed lawsuits, but few received compensation and their suffering was soon forgotten.Still, the ownership of the radium always seemed to trace back to Joseph A. Kelly Sr., a pioneer in marketing radium. His interlocking network of radium paint companies would become one of the largest World War II government contractors by supplying luminescent dials for fighter planes and bombers. He would also quietly become a major supplier of radium and other rare elements used in the Manhattan Project.The radium business was long over when the cleanup bill came due. In 1983 Kelly's son Joseph Jr. agreed to remove 140 grams of radium from his abandoned one-story brick Radium Chemical Company factory in Woodside, Queens. The massive clean up in this quiet industrial corner of the city would cost New York State at least $6 million. Meanwhile Kelly was only required to pay $500,000 in "personal liability" based on the value of his assets.Kelly had made other agreements regarding heavily-polluted sites the company also owned in Georgia and Illinois, which ultimately ended up stiffing the states with the cost of cleanup. In Queens that cleanup apparently extended to the city sewer system."Although it's not known exactly what Radium Chemical was doing at this address," former New York state Assemblyman Maurice D. Hinchey said , "Imagine a spot of salt in your hand equal to enough raw ore to fill your living room, emanating indelible amounts of cancer causing radiation. s reported in 1988 The New York Time that thereSafety considerations were almost unknown during the war effort. According to Manhattan Project troubleshooter George A. Cowan, his radiation monitor "went berserk" on a 1943 trip to the Radium Chemical Company offices in a "big building" on Sixth Avenue." In his memoirs Cowan wrote that workplace conditions that would be illegal today were commonplace."I checked out the primitive chemical hood I was directed to use to make the [Radium-Beryllium] neutron source," Cowan wrote. "I went to the roof of the building where air from the hood was released," and was appalled to find that "the roof was unacceptably radioactive."Radium Chemical may not be alone in carrying blame for Great Kills. Throughout the 20th century, Radium Chemical had one major competitor, International Rare Metals Refinery, Inc , also known as the Canadian Radium and Uranium Corp., located 40 miles north of the city in the hamlet of Mt. Kisco.The Bayonne Bridge spans the waterway linking New Jersey with Staten Island, a site that remains radioactive today.Boris Pregel, an agent for International Rare Metals Refinery, negotiated a deal that the company would sell its uranium to the Manhattan Project for its bomb, and keep its radium to sell. In 1939, a barge from Africa arrived at the warehouse Pregel administered under the Bayonne Bridge near the colonial-era town of Port Richmond on Staten Island.In the US, the uranium was fed into the massive nationwide bomb-making complex. Some of the uranium was used as fuel in the great Hanford reactors making plutonium on the Columbia River and some went to Oak Ridge for enrichment. The bomb project would soon be located in every corner of the country. Increasingly radioactive "dregs" of the ore—as it was further and further processed—would eventually return to New York City for radium extraction at Mt. Kisco. Polonium, another strategic radioactive element would also be extracted as part of the payment for the uranium ore.Waste from the demolition of the factory was reportedly hauled to Croton, New York, where aBased on a tip, a reporter for a local newspaper in 1979 used a borrowed geiger counter to scan the site, walking along railroad tracks where the building had once stood while the detector was held near the ground. The audible sound of the "counts" would speed up as the radiation levels surpassed natural background levels. The. Radium fell out of use by the 1960s, and today is rightfully seen as a dangerous carcinogen. It presents a threat whether as a potential terrorist weapon or hidden by willful ignorance and neglect in a children's playground—such as Great Kills.So just how long until it's taken care of? Radium has a half life of 1,600 years. Unless major initiatives are taken, it'll long outlive any of us.