Last Secret of the A BombThe source of the uranium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 has never been fully established. These slides are the results of my investigation.

Manhattan Project in New York The massive industrial operation that built the first atomic bombs was headquartered in NYC and 75 years later the radioactive contamination lurks around every corner

Sites with known contamination related to nuclear weapons development

Staten Island: High Radium Levels Found in Park By AL BAKER

Published: September 22, 2006 Higher than normal levels of radium have been found in part of a federal park on Staten Island,

the authorities said yesterday. The contamination was found during part of a

counterterrorism operation: helicopter surveillance of the city to discover low-level

radiation. A parcel the size of a football field in the park, the Gateway National Recreation Area, has been closed, the authorities said. Paul J. Browne, a spokesman for the Police

Department, said that the site might once have been an industrial facility.

Radiation Cleanup at Park on Staten Island to Take Years

Park Service acknowledged that the contamination was more extensive than had originally been believed.

“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,” said Kathleen Cuzzolino, an environmental protection specialist for the Park Service.

More than half of the park has shown some degree of radioactivity — virtually the entire area containing the historic fill.

Park officials have fenced off 260 acres, including four ball fields, the model airplane field and a popular trail along Hylan Boulevard. Everywhere are signs proclaiming “Danger: Hazard Area.”

Radium source discovered at Great Kills 2009

New contamination concerns

FOOTPRINT OF CONTAMINATION

There was once speculation that the contamination was limited to singular items, like discarded needles once used to implant radium into tumors to kill cancerous cells.

The NPS has now determined that the contamination is the result of a variety of

items in the debris mixing together. And while previous work at the site has focused on

radiation, there is reason to believe the waste may have also included chemical

contaminants.

"The investigation will delineate the horizontal and vertical 'footprint' of the contamination by

taking soil, groundwater, and surface water samples to ensure that the subsequent

cleanup fully addresses the potential risk of exposure to contaminants,"

March 31, 2015Ra-226 contaminated soil

Marie Curie discovers Radium in 1898

Radium is a constituent of Pitchblende, a ore that also contains uranium. 10 tons of ore

produces 1/10 gram of radium

Luminescent properties of radium are a result of it’s

intense radioactivity

History of Radium in the USA

Standard Chemical Company formed to extract radium from carnotite ores in Colorado.

Radium is a by-product of uranium

Uranium had little value in 1904 when France opened its first radium plant

U.S. domestic production began with domestic sources in 1913

S. W. Shattuck Chemical CompanyFrom about 1934 to the early 1940s, Shattuck was one of only two companies in the U.S. that produced radium salts… Based in Denver, Colorado

Radium & Uranium Sources

U.S. Vanadium Corp successor to U.S. Radium, which was successor to Standard Chemical Company

Uravan mine in Colorado established 1936

Radium in Medicine

Howard A. Kelly 1858-1943

Founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital

Among first to use radium in cancertreatment n 1904

Sewed radium “points” directly totumors. Sometimes killing the cancerother times killing the patient

Radium Needles

Standard Chemical Company

Established in 1911 by Joseph M. and James J. Flannery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Joseph learned in Europe that radium might treat his sister’s cancer

Father-in-Law to Joseph A. Kelly Sr.

500 tons of ore to make a gram of radium

$120,000 a gram for radium

Radium Quacks

Today there are no accepted uses for radium, but 100 years ago the deadly practice of ingesting radium was a major fad

Radium Horrors Owned by Joseph A. Kelly Sr., former board member of Standard Radium

U.S. Radium Corporation spawned by spawned by Standard Radium.

Radiation poisoning from painting watch dials & military dials with radium

Factories in Ottawa, IL and Orange, New Jersey

Changed to Radium Chemical Co., based in Queens producing radium and polonium for atom bomb triggers

Ore from Port Radium, Canada and Katanga, Belgian Congo was used

Union Minière du Haut Katanga

Belgium mining company based ina province of what was calledBelgian Congo, now DemocraticRepublic of Congo.

Controlled 80% of the market inin radium prior to WWII

Held most of the world’s uraniumproduction by 1926.

Belgian radium mines forces merger with American mines in 1922

Edgar SengierDirector of Union Minere du Haut Katanga

Credited with supplying most of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project

Stockpiled uranium in Staten Island warehouse 1940-42

Allowed US troops to seize and reopen the Katanga mine

Belgium-USA Special Relationship

Lewis L. Strauss in "Men and Decisions" (1962) makes the only reference I have ever seen concerning Herbert Hoover's Commission for Famine Relief of Belgium in World War I and its relation to Union Miniere du Haut Katanga. Hoover, Sengier, American and Belgian executives of Union Miniere, members of the Belgian government, including the cabinet, well-placed government officials in the U.S. State Department and elsewhere (including Strauss - who was appointed Commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission during the Cold War) were all part of a close knit group that comprised "a special relationship" between Belgium and the U.S. They were the social glue for the supply of strategic minerals from the Belgian Congo. -Vilma R. Hunt

Lewis L. Strauss, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission

after WWII

Herbert Hoover, former president of the United States

Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgium government in

exile

Shinkolobwe Mine, Katanga

Mining begins in 1921 World’s richest source of radium and at the time the nearly useless byproduct of uranium Ore was 65% uranium, world’s richest source

Katanga Uranium Miners

Labor was recruited from Belgian Congo indigenous tribes and Tutsi and Hutu of modern-day Burundi and Rwanda until 1937

In December 1941, black mine workers at various sites in Katanga Province, including Jadotville and Élisabethville, went on strike, demanding that their pay be increased

Lubumbashi is the mining capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo

In Jadotville, 15 strikers were shot dead by the military.

Governor of Katanga, Amour Maron, shot strike leader leader Léonard Mpoyi, killing him

A painting of the Élisabethville massacre by Congolese artist

Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu

Elizabethville Massacre December 9, 1941

Procuring UraniumMED needed high grade uranium ore on short notice since Canadian ore would take a year to get on line

Union Minere operating in the Belgian Congo agrees to provide US government with Uranium stored in the US and at its Congo mine but keeps ownership of radium and other minerals in the ore

Because the residue from the initial refining of the Belgian Congo ore to black oxide or sodium di-uranat concentrates was owned by African Metals, it had to be stored until it could be returned to the owner. Tailings containing greater than 10 percent uranium oxide were stored at MSP (Middlesex, NJ) or Oak Ridge (DOE1980:4).

Perilous route Shinkolobwe to New York City

By rail across Angola to Lobito

German U-Boat

Dean Mill Warehouse, Staten Island storage for two years

Radiation residue where bags of 65% Katanga

uranium ore were stored

Dean Mill property of Archer-Dainels-Midland, Co. under the Bayonne

Bridge Staten Island where 1200 tons of Katanga ore was stored in 1939

Dean Mill Warehouse 2015 Port Richmond, Staten Island

In February 2008 at the request of local citizens, the state asked the Environmental Protection Agency to re-evaluate contamination at the Richmond Terrace site. On Feb. 20, 2008, the federal and state environmental agencies and the New York City health department conducted a joint assessment of the site, which revealed levels of contamination approximately two orders of magnitude greater than the levels initially reported in 1980 -Gotham Gazette

Approximate site of radioactive contamination from K-65 ore used for the atomic bomb

Warehouse location

Office of Scientific Research and Development OSRD-S-1

Nichols Deputy Captain Ruhoff consults with Stone and Webster in Boston and Sengier in NYC.

S-1 Executive Committee recommends that all of Sengier’s ore be acquired

Vannever Bush Chief of OSRD

Maj. Gen. Kenneth Nichols

Manhattan Project ore procurement

negotiated with Edgar Sengier for Staten Island K-65 uranium

purchased ore from Port Hope refinery through Boris Pregel

Cunard Building 25 Broadway

The offices of Edgar Sengier where the deal was made for Belgian Congo Uranium

Uranium Discovered in NYCSengier apparently made no effort to inform U.S. government of his uranium until after the U.S. entered the war.

At a meeting in D.C. Sengier mentioned the ore to two economic officers at the State Dept.

Staten Island Warehouse 1938

Pax Atomica Americana US battles for control of the world’s uranium 1943-54

Nobody had any idea how plentiful uranium was. Yet, until they knew the endeavor seemed desperately necessary.

C.D. Howe, Canadian minister of munitions

Emissaries were sent to C.D. Howe, Canadian minister of munitions. Howe agreed that control should be obtained… suggested it would be better for the Canadian government to quietly buy a majority share in the company [Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd].

The mine was geared to maximum production. The Americans wanted as much uranium as

possible, as fast as possible. Uranium was scarce, and Canada's uranium had

probably gained in importance because of the scarcity.

1,700 Tons “Black Oxide”To be procured by middle of 1944 for conversion to “feed materials”

Initial procurement begun in 1941, by 1942 all procurement was assumed directly by the Manhattan Project

Ore is inspected at Middlesex, New Jersey warehouse.

Uranium Oxide

Fortuitous DiscoveryMet Lab (Argonne Nat’l Lab) learned of the ore through Standard Oil Development

Company, working on centrifuge process for uranium enrichment.

Through African Metals subsidiary in NY - Sengier

requested an export license for the ore.

Alumni of the Met Lab pose on the steps of Eckhart Hall on

the campus of the University of Chicago on December 2, 1946

Negotiated ContractMeeting at Bohemian Grove of OSRD on September 13-14, 1942 leads to the decision to buy the Staten Island ore.

Gen. Leslie Groves presses for purchase of the ore.

Sept. 18,23,25 agreement made to buy 1200 tons in NY and twice as much stored in the Belgian Congo.

S-1 Committee at the Bohemian Grove, September 13, 1942. From left to right

are Harold C. Urey, Ernest O. Lawrence, James B. Conant, Lyman J. Briggs

Uranium ore flows

Ore was transferred to Seneca Army Depot at Romulus, NY.

Uranium came faster than it could be refined

Ore was assayed and stored in a warehouse in Middlesex, New Jersey

Milling and Refining beginsSengier released 100 tons of the uranium ore for shipment to Eldorado Gold Mines Port Hope refinery.

Eldorado marketing agent was Canadian Radium and Uranium Corporation managed by Boris Pregel

Eldorado mine

Port RadiumEldorado Mining and Refining Ltd. owned mine

Pitchblende discovered by Gilbert LaBine in 1930

Closed in 1936, reopened in 1942 to supply uranium for Manhattan Project

Canadian Uranium and Radium Company was their agent in New York

Gilbert LaBine and pilot Punch

Dickens

Sahtugot’ine; First Nation of Sahtu (Great Bear Lake)

Deline, NWT is known as the “Village of Widows”

NWT cancer registry counts 14 cancer deaths at Deline from 1942-1960

“And for God’s sake don’t even tell your wife what you’re doing.” Minister of Munitions C.D. Howe

1931 first shipment of Uranium ore from Port Radium

Port Hope, Ontario Refinery Only large scale uranium processor in the Western Hemisphere

Refinery set up by in the Western Hemisphere Gilbert LeBine to process ore from Port Radium

Refines raw ores and concentrates from Shinkolobwe Mine and Port Radium

Black Rock Station, Buffalo

Rail shipments to the United States were discreetly loaded in small packages, addressed to the attention of “Mr. Bishop, Black Rock Terminal, Buffalo ny.” -Peter Van Wyck, Highway to the Atom

International Bridge to Canada

Boris PregelJewish-Ukrainian engineer and dealer in uranium and radium

Union Minere’s Chief Sales Agent in Europe

Signed contracts for Eldorado Mine, Port Radium and Port Hope Refinery

Exclusive contract with Eldorado Gold Mines, receive commission for radium sales

Canadian Radium & Uranium Co. formed November 1940

Net profits rise from $50,000 in 1940 to $167,000 in 1941

Apparently did not control Radium Chemical Company, his

Union Minere rival.Pregel’s relationship with Union Minere seems to have gone sour in 1939-40

Curie admired PregelMadame Curie admired Pregel’s skill. She was heard to say "Anyone can refine radium - only Boris Pregel can sell it”

Madame Curie

Quotes and background information thanks to researcher and author Vilma R. Hunt

Canadian Uranium and Radium Company

Supplied radium used by MED

Corporate Office in Rockefeller Center with factory in Mount Kisco, New York

Agent for Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd., Union Minière, Radium Chemical Company http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/site/212-

international-rare-metals-refinery-inc/

Boris & Alexander Pregel

Commercial supplier of radium and polonium

The federal government, through the Manhattan Project, purchased uranium ore from African and Canadian sources.

The ore was processed by independent refiners. In later years the market for radium collapsed. The residues were stored by the government for the owners.

The government’s correspondence identifies Pregel’s company known as International Rare Metals Refinery and Canadian Uranium and Radium Company at Mount Kisco, NY as the site involved in the extraction of radium from these ores or residues for African Metals, a subsidiary of the Belgian Company, Union Minière, which owned the Katanga uranium mine.

The contracts were only for the uranium in these ores. The agreements provided that all other valuable elements such as radium belonged to the owner African Metals Corp.

Ties that bind Pregel and Sengier

Pregel and Sengier went back before World War I. They had both graduated from the University of Liege in Belgium and joined the Curie circle.

Together they developed the medical marketing of radium throughout the world. Loyalty was part of their code of honor.”

Leslie Groves wants tp freeze Pregel out of MED

“Your contract with Boris Pregel to treat the sludge residue for the extraction of radium is something of an embarrassment to us.” -Groves speaking to Sengier attributed by Vilma R. Hunt

Gen. Leslie Groves director of the Manhattan Project

Radium Delivered to African Metals Corp 1945

The U.S. government after buying the Staten Island warehouse uranium ore for $1 a pound fulfills its bargain allowing Edgar Sengier and Boris Pregel to extract and keep the ore’s radium content.

Bertrand GoldschmidtFrance’s “father of the atomic bomb.”

Hired by Pregel to recover polonium, during the radium recovery operation.

Used “dregs” left over in the extraction of uranium from the Belgian ore in Port Hope.

Pregel’s group had set up a factory for this purpose in Mt. Kisco.

PoloniumUsed to initiate neutron flux in the atomic bomb

Much of the early research and experimentation by the Monsanto Company was directed toward various methods of extraction of polonium from lead dioxide, which was immediately available in residues from the radium refinery at Port Hope, Canada.

MAHHAT’iM DISTRICT HISTCBT BOOS VIII, LOS ALAMOS PHOJJOCT (T) VOLUM1 3, AUXILIARY ACTIVITIES CHAPTER kt DAYTOB PROJECT

Dayton Project: Last Secret of the A Bomb Dr. Charles A. Thomas of Monsanto Chemical Company is director

Investigate the chemistry and metallurgy of polonium

Replaced by Mound Laboratory

Created polonium based modulated neutron initiators used to begin chain reactions in atomic bombs

George Koval Soviet SpyA GRU spy who was assigned to Oak Ridge Koval supplied crucial information about the “urchin.”

Born in Iowa

Parents raised George and his two other brothers in Sioux City until 1932, when the Great Depression forced the family to move back to the Soviet Union

On February 13, 1946, the G.R.U. received a report from Koval that included a brief description of the manufacturing process of polonium.

Boris Pregel under scrutiny

One by-product of the congressional investigation of

alleged secrets sent to Russia in 1943-44 is a demand for the

deportation of one of the leading uranium magnates of the world,

who was given permission to ship uranium to Russia in May, 1943.

He is Boris Pregel.

Max Pavey was chief chemist at Canadian Radium and Uranium Corp. He died tragically young, at the age of

39, on 4 September 1957, as a result of leukemia contracted at his place of work

Radium casualty

Radium Exposure in Humans

Chemist, blue collar worker in a radium plant, Dial handler, Dial Painter, Industrial exposure, contaminated home, Physician, Radium accident, injection, water, Radiathor

Radioactive Waste Dumped in Landfill BUILDING ON SITE WAS DEMOLISHED IN 1961 WITH C&D WASTE BEING SENT TO THE CROTON LANDFILL WITH NYSDOH APPROVAL.

Canadian Radium and Uranium Company facility located on Railroad Ave. in Mount Kisco, NY

NYTimes: MOUNT KISCO, N.Y., Dec. 17 1957,—The Canadian Radium and Uranium Corporation pleaded guilty in village court here today to permitting employees to receive

excessive doses of radiation and failing to survey fully last spring its plant's radiation hazards.

Radioactive Contamination Detected at Mt. Kisco Site

In early April 1979, Ruth Boice, a reporter for the Patent Trader, in response to an anonymous tip that radiation might be found in the vicinity of the former plant, rented a geiger counter… [she] surveyed the area of Kisco Avenue and railroad Avenue, Mount Kisco. She found readings close to the old freight station on Railroad Avenue, in two areas, of 0.3 and 0.35 millirems per hour.

Joseph A. Kelly Sr

Son-in-law to Joseph Flannery

Founder Radium Dial Company -1922

Founder Luminescent Processes -1934

Citation from United States for his war effort

1921-President Warren G. Harding presents Marie Curie with 1 gram of U.S. produced radium from Standard Chemical CompanyStandard Chemical Company became sales agent for Union Miniere after the Shinkolobwe Mine, Katanga in the Belgian Congo was opened and the price of radium plummeted. SCC was dissolved in 1933

Radium Chemical CompanySubsidiary and American marketing of Union Minière

Joseph A. Kelly Jr. is chief agent during WWII

Based in New York City -“Sixth Avenue” and 42nd St and 44th St. According to various reports

Beginning in 1943 procured most of the radium for MED

Joseph A. Kelly Sr., was president of new company Luminous Processes, Radium Dial was allowed to go

out of business. In 1936 Radium Chemical and its subsidiary Luminous Processes into a new Radium

Chemical Company. Leadership of the new plant was unclear until 1973 when it was Joseph A. Kelly Jr. A Dun and Brad Street investigation showed these and

other companies shared a “similarity of directors.”

Radium Dial CompanyIn 1922 The Radium Dial Company (RDC), division of Standard Chemical Company moved from Peru, Illinois to a former high school building in Ottawa. The company employed hundreds of young women who painted watch dials using a paint called “Luna” for watch maker Westclox. RDC went out of business in 1936, two years after the company’s president, Joseph Kelly Sr., left to start a competing company, Luminous Processes Inc., a few blocks away. -If Liz Were Queen blog

Dial painters at Radium Dial Co.The opportunity to study a discrete human population exposed to a potentially toxic agent is rare, and it is rarer still to be able to collect sufficient data on the exposed subjects to reach definitive conclusions about the potency of the toxicant. Such an opportunity emerged when skeletal lesions, including tumors, became associated with workers (luminizers) who painted luminous dials on timepieces, with radioactive radium as the energy source for luminosity. This correlation was observed in the 1920s, when the dial painting industry was centered in the northeastern United States.

Radium: A Strategic Material

December 7, 1941 U.S. enters WWII

Radium business picks up with demand for luminescent paint for military aircraft controls

World War II Radium Use

1941-1945: The U.S. will use more than 190 grams of radium for luminescent instruments during World War II. In contrast, less than 30 grams of radium were used worldwide for this purpose during WWI.

1942: The U.S. Radium Corporation expands its facilities and its technical and managerial personnel by 1,600%. At its peak, the company employs about 1,000 workers.

1942: E. Sengier of Union Miniere, with the help of J.A. Kelly Sr. of the Radium Chemical Company, sells the 1,250 tons of pitchblende ore stored at Staten Island to the Manhattan Project.

1944-1945: Radium Chemical Company supplies most of the radium required by the Manhattan Project. The radium is used as a neutron source for testing and operating atomic piles and for the trigger mechanism for the atomic bomb. J.A. Kelly Sr. received a U.S. government citation for his war effort. Argonne National Laboratory

Radium purchased by MED

Radium Chemical Company supplies radium for use as a neutron source in early research into the “urchin” a

trigger device located at the center of the atomic bomb

Declining Price of Radium 1946-1952

Isotopes and Innovation: MDS Nordion's First Fifty Years, 1946-1996 By Paul Litt Uranium Company By Robert Bothwe

1921-$75,000/gram 1934-$50,000/gram 1944-$11,000/gram 1946-$11,110/gram 1947-$6,900/gram 1948-$5,000/gram 1949-$4.980/gram 1950-$5,760/gram 1951-$6,900/gram

1 East 42nd StreetBusiness office of Joseph A. Kelly Jr. founder of Radium Chemical Company

“Beginning in 1943, the Radium Chemical Co. supplied most of the radium required for the Manhattan Engineer District. Combinations of material supplied and/or mixed by the Radium Chemical Company included radium bromide and radium bromide mixed with powdered beryllium. Brass was also used.”

Radium Chemical CompanyOccupied from 1939 to 1944 by the Radium Chemical Company, a family-owned radium supplier that is believed to have had offices or factories in at least a dozen addresses in the city since its founding in 1913. -NYTimes May 5, 1988 235 East 44th St., NY, NY

High Radiation levels found

One of a dozen RCC facilities in NYC

Visting Radium Chemical Co.

Beryllium-Radium neutron source

George Cowan Met Lab (later Argonne National Lab) chemist on his trip to Radium Chemical

Company (the site was also Uranium Corporation of America by Cowan) a two-story

brick facility on Sixth Avenue in NYC

“Radium Chemical Company, a subsidiary of the Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga of Belgium, the dominant source of world uranium supplies, was willing to rent a gram of radium… Szilard’s lack

of affiliation made the Radium Chemical Company nervous.” The Making of the Atomic

Bomb by Richard Rhodes

Eventually Radium as a neutron source would be

replaced by Polonium

“Beryllium Vendor designation added to Facility Type.

Time Period changed from mid1940s to 1943-1950.”

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program

George A. Cowan nuclear weapons troubleshooter -1943 Radium Chemical Company has a Sixth Avenue facility where Cowan acquires a Radium-Beryllium neutron source.

Maurice D. Hinchey NY State Assembly Investigates

''Although we don't know exactly what Radium Chemical was doing at this address,'' the Assemblyman said, ''it would appear that radium particles were washed down through the plumbing system.''

Radium Chemical Company Centers for Disease Control Report 60-06 27th Avenue in Woodside, Queens

In the late 1950’s, RCC transferred its operations to the present location in Woodside, New York. The radium and radon devices were stored on-site in lead containers in a brick vault room. Eventually the demand for radium sources lagged as they were replaced with advanced radiotherapy techniques using cesium and cobalt sources. Subsequently, many leased radium sources were returned to RCC and were stored on-site.

In 1983, the State of New York suspended the RCC operating license

due to various disposal and safety infractions

Radium Contamination Radium Chemical Company 60-06 27th Avenue in Woodside, Queens

Remaining on-site were a large number of radium-containing sealed devices, some of which were suspected of releasing radium and radon gas. The amount of radium-226 at the site was established to be 110 Curies (Ci).

Radiation equivalent of 330 tons depleted Uranium

Approximately 812 tons of radioactive soil and debris and 92 cubic feet of radium-contaminated hazardous wastes was disposed of at facilities located in Richland, Washington and Beatty, Nevada, both operated by U.S. Ecology waste sent to Richland, WA from Great Kills Park

Piscataway Radium Incident poorly regulated, illegal disposal

1989

September 11, 2001 Attacks and the war on terror leads to “Dirty Bomb” search

NYC training slide

Aerial Radiation Survey NYC August, 2005

80 unexpected “hot spots”

$800,000 survey done by Department of Energy

Elevated radiation on Second Avenue near the Israeli consulate

Elevated radiation at Great Kills Park on Staten Island

Radium-226 contamination up to 200 times background found over more than half the park

NYPD discovers unexpected radioactive hot spots at Great Kills Park, Staten Island.

closed area of park

Illegal Dumping NYC long history

Brookfield landfill Illegal dump in State IslandFresh Kills landfill

Rikers Island

1941-Great Kills Park project expands parkland on Staten IslandDEPARTMENT OF PARKSARSENAL, CENTRAL PARK FOR RELEASE MondayTEL. REGENT 4-1000 April 28, 1941

Bids were opened today at the U. S. Engineers Office, 17 Battery Place, before Colonel L. S. Dillon, District Engineer, for the work of dredging 1,300,000 yards of material from Great Kills Harbor, Marine Park, Staten Island. This is part of a joint plan between the City ofNew York and the federal government for providing an 8 foot deep boat harborat Great Kills, and placing the fill along the south and east shore of the Bay, for the development of Marine Park. The P. Sanford Ross Company was low bidder with a bid of $113,761.68…

The cost of the dredging contract is to be split equally between the City and the federal government, the City paying for the work and being reimbursed by the federal government…

The plan calls for filling the entire park areaincluding the portion in the center of the park now occupied by the abandoned incinerator. The City already has a substantial investment in this program.

Great Kills Park- 1949

Great Kills Landfill

From 1944-48 15 million cubic yards of garbage used to fill in the park including 265 acres with radiation spots 200-times normal background levels

1946 a garbage truck dumps waste at Great Kills, Staten Island

Recent photo

Known Radionuclides found in Great Kills Park

Radium 226, Radium 228, Cesium 137, Krypton 85,Nickel 63, Promethium 147, Rhenium 187, Thorium 232, Cobalt 60, Cobalt 57 Germanium 68, Natural Thorium

Radiation Dose in the ParkThe radioactivity measured on contact at Great Kills Park ranges from 0.01 mrem/hr to 20 mrem/hr.

Within a few feet of the source of contamination the gamma radiation levels found at the site drop off to normal background.

Air monitoring in the park has not identified any elevated levels of radioactivity in the air.

Mrem stands for millirem or 1/1,000 of a rem, which is the unit that measures what effect radiation has on the body.

Old Staten Island Railroad connects Port Richmond

Lehigh Valley RR services the docks ad piers of NYC

Starrett-Lehigh Bldg. 1937 at Pier 66, about 26th St.

Starrett-Lehigh building provides a unique construction offering railway freight cars access from the west side car float pier directly into the building for unloading and storage. Freight cars carried by boat from New Jersey would be moved in 30-foot

elevators to truck pits on upper floors. -http://www.starrett-lehigh.com/

Uranium and Radium rich ores may have passed through

Float Bridge connects LVRR from NJ to NYC by Rail

1933 - Port New York Authority Port Authority of New York New Jersey archives The original map which was located in the World Trade Center, was destroyed 11 September 2001 A copy was fortunately made by T. Flagg! T. Flagg archives

High-Line Connects the West Side

Elevated Freight railroad passes through former Bell Labs building on Washington Street. Freight trains connected west side rail yards to the meat packing district south of 14th.

Baker and Williams 11/1942West 20th street warehouse where uranium from African ore was held during WWII

High Line RR

Lehigh Valley System Map - 1956

Freight System connects Middlesex sampling plant

38 miles from NYC

Middlesex Sampling Plant N.J.

Initially used to stockpile weapons-grade uranium ore. From 1943 to 1955, under the direction of the Manhattan Project and its successor agency, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), it was used to crush, dry, screen, weigh, assay, store, package, and ship uranium ore, along with thorium and beryllium ores, for the development of the atomic bomb.

Lehigh Valley Main Freight Line Makes the Connection

Lehigh Valley main freight line connects New York City to Seneca depot on to Buffalo and Ontario. Store K-65 uranium ore

moved from Staten Island before processing at Port Hope and Linde Ceramics

Seneca Ordnance Depot

Lehigh Valley Rail Map 1942

Seneca Army DepotFirst stop for Katanga Ore shipped from Staten Island through Middlesex, NJ to Port Hope, ON

Lehigh Valley RRFrom Staten Island by rail to Linde Ceramics in Tonawanda, NY

Lake Ontario Ordnance WorksNiagara Falls Storage Site where highly radioactive K-65 ore residue was stored

Uranium is further refined

These metals were then shipped to the Hanford nuclear reactors at Richland, Washington for use in plutonium production, and from there the plutonium was shipped to Los Alamos for use in developing the atom bomb, and later the weapons development program (DOE 1980:5).

Once the ore was sampled, weighed, and assayed, it was shipped from MSP to the Linde Refinery, Tonawanda, New York, where it was processed into black oxide or sodium di-uranate concentrates. These materials were then refined into orange oxide at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company in St. Louis, Missouri and E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Deepwater, New Jersey.

The green salt was used to manufacture uranium metals at du Pont; Mallinckrodt; Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa; Westinghouse in Bloomfield, New Jersey; Brush Laboratories in Cleveland, Ohio, and Electromet, Niagara Falls, New York.

The orange oxide was further refined to green salt (UF4) by du Pont, Mallinckrodt, the Linde refinery, and the Harshaw Chemical Company in Cleveland, Ohio.

Linde Air Products Ceramics Plant Tonawanda, NY (Union Carbide)

Began refining uranium in 1943

Previously used uranium to make ceramic glaze

Produced Brown Oxide and Green Salt

Radium containing residue stored on site

Former workers at Linde Air Products asking for government compensation to cover illnesses contracted at the plant

Uranium Plant Uravan, CO Uranium concentrate (15% U30 S, 1.10% V20 S) shipped to Linde Air Products Co. at Tonawanda, NY to produce black oxide.

Uranium Extraction Linde

Linde Contracted to Refine African and American OreIncreased number of deaths above expected were laryngeal cancer (observed 5) and pneumonia (observed 17).

Appendix B contains a memorandum of June 4, 2009 ([Name Redacted] 2009), to SC&A from a Linde SEC petitioner, attaching four memoranda from 1944, and asserting that, contrary to NIOSH’s assumption in its site profile of 8%–12% U3O8 content for African pitchblende feedstock, “65% Belgian Congo ore was processed at Linde during the operational time period.” Review of the Linde Ceramics Plant Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) Petition 00107 and the NIOSH SEC Petition Evaluation Report

65% Uranium Ore increases workers radiation exposure

The operational period at Linde continued until 1949. Beginning in 1949, the Linde site underwent decontamination and cleanup, and in 1954, the site was released for private use. The post-1954 era at the Linde site is known as the residual period, and it is during this time that the various buildings at the site began to undergo renovation and remediation;

Absence of forethought for long term waste storage

Linde Plant waste was stored hereFormer silo where K-65 high radium content residues stored at the LOOW-NFSS site

Tonawanda Manhattan Project Legacy

The Tonawanda, N.Y. FUSRAP Site consists of five properties:

Contaminated with radioactive wastes resulting from the uranium ore refinery operations conducted in Tonawanda by the U.S. Army's top secret Manhattan Engineer District

Between 1942 and 1946, 8,000 tons of filter cake residues, resulting from the processing of domestic uranium ores and residues at the Linde facility, were dumped on the ground in a layer 1 to 5 feet thick at the 10.8 acre Haist property (now known as Ashland 1).

20,500 tons of high-radium-content residues from the processing of African pitchblende ores were taken to the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works site near Lewiston, NY. And 154 tons of residues were taken to Middlesex, NJ.

http://www.factsofwny.com/overview.htm

Domestic low concentration uranium waste was stored at Ashland Oil site

Mallinckrodt Chemical Inc. Centralizes U.S. Uranium Processing