Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/24/2006 | Monica Yant Kinney | Hard to ignore radioactive slag
Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/24/2006 | Monica Yant Kinney | Hard to ignore radioactive slag: "Monica Yant Kinney | Hard to ignore radioactive slag
By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist
First, we learn that children were exposed to mercury at a toxic day-care center in Franklin Township. Now, a nearby factory wants to skip town and leave South Jersey a pile of radioactive waste perfect for games of King of the Mountain.
Sometimes, I'd rather not believe what I read.
It's hard enough knowing that just living in New Jersey could give you cancer. Now I see a known polluter is trying to blackmail the Garden State in a radioactive version of Deal or No Deal.
Let us leave our mess, on our terms, the company says. Make us stay and clean it up, and we'll have no choice but to file for bankruptcy and stick taxpayers with the bill.
Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. is a middle-age company with a modern-day dilemma.
For more than 40 years, the metal-making factory in Newfield, Gloucester County, has thrown its trash out back, creating a six-acre, 35-foot-high pile of radioactive rock called slag.
Shieldalloy recently stopped production in these parts so a sister company can do it more cheaply in Brazil. Fair enough, except unlike homeowners, metal manufacturers can't just lock up the place and walk away.
Thousand-year payment plan
Shieldalloy has to answer to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (because it used ore containing radioactive uranium and thorium) and the state Department of Environmental Protection (because the factory is also a Superfund site, with chromium in the groundwater and soil).
The company has spent more than 20 years and a tidy sum trying to clean up its chemical mess under the state's watchful eye. This time, Shieldalloy would prefer to cut costs and corners, and run.
"Statistically," Shieldalloy spokesman Michael Turner tells me, "it would be more dangerous to move this material because the trucks may get into an accident in a highway."
Plus, he says, the cost of scrubbing the site so it could be redeveloped "would put us out of business."
Rather than spend $30 million to $58 million to haul 50,000 tons of slag to a special dump in Utah, the company proposes spending just $5 million to tamp down the radioactive rock, cover it with soil and grass, and build a fence. Shieldalloy estimates monitoring costs at $19,000 a year for the next 1,000 years.
Yes, it really thinks that's enough to cover any and all problems on the pile until 3010. That's because the company can't imagine any problems.
Sure, Shieldalloy's proposal leaves locals in the lurch. But think of the benefits for a firm bolting for Brazil.
"All you need to do," Turner says, "is pay someone to make sure the cap is in place and mow the grass."
Slag for sale
Sorry to be such a dunce, but if 50,000 tons of radioactive waste is "innocuous," as Shieldalloy and the NRC assert, what's the dispute?
Jill Lapoti of the state DEP poses another question in response: "If it's innocuous, why would it cost all that money to clean up?"
The DEP wants the site cleaned and the ground cleared. Period. New Jersey has precious little developable land left. Even six acres has value.
Ah, but so does radioactive slag, says Turner. If only the government didn't make it so hard to sell it.
"Frankly, we would give it away," he says, but even willing takers don't want the hassle.
In another irony, Turner tells me that if Shieldalloy is forced to spend every cent it has shipping slag out West, "we'd actually be taking space that could be used for things that are much, much more radioactive."
So really, when you think about it, the pile of slag is good for the earth?
Hardly, sniffs Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, who reminds her industrial foes that "there's no safe level of radiation."
"The earth moves," D'Arrigo points out. "It's a living organism. To expect to be able to inject poison into it and have it stay still is unrealistic."
Contact Monica Yant Kinney at 856-779-3914 or myant@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney.
"
By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist
First, we learn that children were exposed to mercury at a toxic day-care center in Franklin Township. Now, a nearby factory wants to skip town and leave South Jersey a pile of radioactive waste perfect for games of King of the Mountain.
Sometimes, I'd rather not believe what I read.
It's hard enough knowing that just living in New Jersey could give you cancer. Now I see a known polluter is trying to blackmail the Garden State in a radioactive version of Deal or No Deal.
Let us leave our mess, on our terms, the company says. Make us stay and clean it up, and we'll have no choice but to file for bankruptcy and stick taxpayers with the bill.
Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. is a middle-age company with a modern-day dilemma.
For more than 40 years, the metal-making factory in Newfield, Gloucester County, has thrown its trash out back, creating a six-acre, 35-foot-high pile of radioactive rock called slag.
Shieldalloy recently stopped production in these parts so a sister company can do it more cheaply in Brazil. Fair enough, except unlike homeowners, metal manufacturers can't just lock up the place and walk away.
Thousand-year payment plan
Shieldalloy has to answer to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (because it used ore containing radioactive uranium and thorium) and the state Department of Environmental Protection (because the factory is also a Superfund site, with chromium in the groundwater and soil).
The company has spent more than 20 years and a tidy sum trying to clean up its chemical mess under the state's watchful eye. This time, Shieldalloy would prefer to cut costs and corners, and run.
"Statistically," Shieldalloy spokesman Michael Turner tells me, "it would be more dangerous to move this material because the trucks may get into an accident in a highway."
Plus, he says, the cost of scrubbing the site so it could be redeveloped "would put us out of business."
Rather than spend $30 million to $58 million to haul 50,000 tons of slag to a special dump in Utah, the company proposes spending just $5 million to tamp down the radioactive rock, cover it with soil and grass, and build a fence. Shieldalloy estimates monitoring costs at $19,000 a year for the next 1,000 years.
Yes, it really thinks that's enough to cover any and all problems on the pile until 3010. That's because the company can't imagine any problems.
Sure, Shieldalloy's proposal leaves locals in the lurch. But think of the benefits for a firm bolting for Brazil.
"All you need to do," Turner says, "is pay someone to make sure the cap is in place and mow the grass."
Slag for sale
Sorry to be such a dunce, but if 50,000 tons of radioactive waste is "innocuous," as Shieldalloy and the NRC assert, what's the dispute?
Jill Lapoti of the state DEP poses another question in response: "If it's innocuous, why would it cost all that money to clean up?"
The DEP wants the site cleaned and the ground cleared. Period. New Jersey has precious little developable land left. Even six acres has value.
Ah, but so does radioactive slag, says Turner. If only the government didn't make it so hard to sell it.
"Frankly, we would give it away," he says, but even willing takers don't want the hassle.
In another irony, Turner tells me that if Shieldalloy is forced to spend every cent it has shipping slag out West, "we'd actually be taking space that could be used for things that are much, much more radioactive."
So really, when you think about it, the pile of slag is good for the earth?
Hardly, sniffs Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, who reminds her industrial foes that "there's no safe level of radiation."
"The earth moves," D'Arrigo points out. "It's a living organism. To expect to be able to inject poison into it and have it stay still is unrealistic."
Contact Monica Yant Kinney at 856-779-3914 or myant@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney.
"
posted by Greta Jane at Sunday, September 24, 2006
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