
Most Radioactive Spot in New York: A Street Corner in Queens - state_machine
http://thishiddencity.blogspot.com/2016/02/irving-avenue-and-moffat-street-queens.html?m=1
======
mrob
>The plant processed Monazite sand, which, when treated with Sulfuric Acid,
separates into the rare-earth Sodium Sulfate,

Sodium sulfate is not a rare-earth. This looks to me like a case of copying
from Wikipedia without understanding. From:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite#Acid_cracking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite#Acid_cracking)

"leaving a solution of lanthanide sulfates from which the lanthanides could be
easily precipitated as a double sodium sulfate"

This is an additional step that happens after the steps shown in the diagram,
to separate the different lanthanides. Sodium sulfate is added to the mixed
lanthanide sulfates, some of which form lanthanide-sodium double sulfates (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_salt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_salt))
which precipitate out while other lanthanides remain in solution. See
[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HPyNk-cU-
nQC&pg=PA402&lp...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HPyNk-cU-
nQC&pg=PA402&lpg=PA402&dq=lanthanides+double+salts+sodium+sulphate)

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mgraczyk
The article is wrong about safe doses by a factor of 50-100.

"a worker at Los Primos is exposed to about 300 millirem per year (100 per
year is deemed the highest "safe" dose)"

should be "5000-10000 per year is deemed the highest safe dose".

~~~
mapt
Nobody deems any amount of radiation to be a safe dose. Instead, they work
under a linear no-threshold model where 50 millirems each might cause 10
cancers in N million people exposed, while 200 millirems each will cause 40
cancers in the same population - absorbed dose is supposed to be directly
proportional to harm in large groups of people.

There are _suspicions_ that this is maybe too conservative, and that we have
repair mechanisms for small quantities of radiation that don't exist for
larger quantities, but this directly contradicts the establishment line on the
matter, and would be impossible to ethically test.

Placing limits on workplace or general exposure would not represent "safety",
but merely a threshold at which regulatory mechanisms kick in. Per
[http://www.nrc.gov/images/about-
nrc/radiation/factoid2-lrg.g...](http://www.nrc.gov/images/about-
nrc/radiation/factoid2-lrg.gif) , background dose aboveground is about
310mrem/yr, and we average about twice that when taking into account human
activities (medical imaging and radon mostly, I would expect).

~~~
mc32
There are populated places on earth with high, naturally occurring background
radiation, one such place is in Iran, what have been the long term health
effects on people in places like that? I imagine studies have been done.

~~~
lostlogin
Have a read up on radiation hormesis. It looks like small doses might be
beneficial. The linear no threshold model is all fine and good at high doses,
but low down the data is poor.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15673519](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15673519)

~~~
mapt
As effect size goes down, statistically significant data gets harder and
harder to collect and control effectively. We have tiny amounts of research
funding, and even if we took in seven billion people as a dataset, there is
some non-negligible dose below which this ceases to be statistically
significant.

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davegardner
The actual EPA documentation[1] about this site shows that the comparative
exposure is not nearly as significant as the article indicates. A handy
comparative radiation dose table that they provide shows that you'd receive an
additional 240 mR/year simply by moving from NYC to Denver, Colorado.[2] By
comparison, the estimated annual dose received by a worker at the former
Wolff-Alport site is 120 mR/year.

[1]
[http://www3.epa.gov/region02/waste/wolff/docs.html#Docs](http://www3.epa.gov/region02/waste/wolff/docs.html#Docs)
[2]
[http://www3.epa.gov/region02/waste/wolff/pdf/NYC_DOH_May_200...](http://www3.epa.gov/region02/waste/wolff/pdf/NYC_DOH_May_2007_wolff_alport_exposure_sheet.pdf)

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pvaldes
Is not related but is a curiosity, 'Los primos' (the cousins) is often
translated colloquially as 'The fools' in spanish. When you fall in a very
obvious scam you are a 'primo' or did 'el primo'.

But the best part is what is not said in the article. It seems that there is a
licensed grocery selling sandwiches next to this garage... if your dream is to
develop superpowers after sipping a coffe this would the place.

~~~
DugFin
"Irradiated" and "radioactive" are not the same thing. An irradiated sandwich
poses absolutely no threat to its consumer.

~~~
DonHopkins
But eating radioactive sandwiches and sipping radioactive coffee does cause
you to develop superpowers?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Only if you count sudden cancer as a superpower.

That said, GP's point is that unless there are radioactive substances flying
in the air / otherwise contaminating the store next door, things bought there
should be safe. They'll be irradiated (affected by radiation), but not
radioactive themselves. Contrary to popular opinion, getting irradiated
doesn't cause you to become radioactive.

~~~
the8472
> getting irradiated doesn't cause you to become radioactive.

Well, actually... Neutron activation and photodisintegration via high energy
gamma rays can produce radioactive isotopes via irradiation.

But this generally requires a high flux or high energy to produce noticeable
secondary radioactivity. So depending on the type and energy spectrum of the
radiation the sandwich is exposed to it might pick up tiny tiny amounts of
radioactivity.

But yeah, that's probably going to be drowned out by any kind of radioactive
dust.

~~~
thrownaway2424
What if I had put a banana in the sandwich? Then can I get superpowers? Is the
form of the sandwich even relevant?

~~~
DonHopkins
The type of sandwich determines your costume colors and decoration.

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Luc
There's a bit more detail in this Pulitzer Prize winning (short) article, also
addressing the 100 mrem figure: [http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2014/national-
reporting/wsjwas...](http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2014/national-
reporting/wsjwastelands/02wsjwastelands2014.pdf)

------
devb
A lot in Staten Island was once used to store uranium ore for the Manhattan
Project. A recent survey found very high levels of radiological contamination.

[https://fopnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/staten-islands-
tain...](https://fopnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/staten-islands-tainted-edge-
geologic-city-report-3/)

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grahamel
There's an interactive piece from a couple of years ago for more
background/history of the Wolff-Alport site
[http://projects.newyorker.com/story/radioactive-
nyc/](http://projects.newyorker.com/story/radioactive-nyc/)

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drzaiusapelord
One of Chicago's most upscale downtown neighborhoods is built on a thorium
dump from the gaslight era. This is more than a little academic as
Streeterville is currently being re-developed by Northwestern Hospital and the
city has to be careful not to put more thorium in the air. There are something
like four or five new buildings being built right now.

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-17/news/ct-
thoriu...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-17/news/ct-thorium-
radioactive-cleanup--20140417_1_chicago-river-west-chicago-radioactive-waste)

The fix? When radiation is detected, the soil is put in bags and shipped to a
facility that can dispose of it. The land in the article is going to be park.

[http://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2012/08/22/work-on-
chicag...](http://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2012/08/22/work-on-chicagos-
newest-lakefront-attraction-could-start-soon/)

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iSnow
Why the hell does this not get cleaned up?

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matheweis
"a sandwich of 2 inches (5 cm) of steel, 2 inches of lead, and another 2
inches of steel has been laid down under almost the entire block"

Not cleaned up, but somewhat mitigated and wow that doesn't sound like it was
cheap...

~~~
iSnow
The sheer volume of money and work and the technical difficulties of putting a
15cm thick sandwich of metal underneath a block make me doubt the veracity of
the article.

Especially coupled with the factual error "separates into the rare-earth
Sodium Sulfate". Sodium is nowhere near a rare-earth metal and Monazite is a
Cerium/Lanthanium phosphate that contains lots of other elements, Uranium and
Thorium among them.

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johnm1019
Obligatory XKCD chart for understanding the radiation amounts in the article

[https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

100 mrem == 1mSv

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert#Rem_equivalence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert#Rem_equivalence)

Thinking about the article... for those who understand the risks of increased
background radiation, I bet for these businesses rent is cheap!

~~~
DonHopkins
How many inches of lead on the ground is considered safe?

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ascagnel_
How much lead is seeping into the groundwater from this location?

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johnm1019
That's why they wrap it in a steel sandwich -- to protect the lead, not
principally for radiation protection.

~~~
DonHopkins
I can understand why the lead on the streets of New York needs to be wrapped
in 2 inches of steel for protection: otherwise it would be stolen.

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ars
Why have any business there at all? Use the area for storage or parking, or
something intermittent like that.

~~~
electro_thiago
I used to live about 3 blocks from here. Within a 2 block radius, there's a
children's school, a popular outdoor bar, a hipster pizza restaurant, and some
"artist lofts". It's likely that the residents and workers in the area don't
have/didn't have knowledge of the former monazite sand site. With the NYC real
estate market as it is, there are a bunch of areas with toxic sites like the
Gowanus Canal that are people are moving to.
[http://gothamist.com/2015/07/30/brooklyn_hipster_havens_toxi...](http://gothamist.com/2015/07/30/brooklyn_hipster_havens_toxic.php)

