Site 32, like Site 1, will be covered with three feet of clean soil.
Bulldozing and grading of the land spread some of the material around. Radium waste is believed to have entered the Site 32 area when the runway was extended over the old dump in the mid-1950s.
The area is next to the location of the old underground dump, known as Site 1, where radium paint waste materials were disposed of. Site 32 is located on the airfield west of where the Antiques Faire is held. In 2018 the Navy will begin remediation of the last cleanup site where radium-226 is a concern. The ramifications from the paint use doesn’t stop in the hangar area. Seven years ago the Navy removed and replaced more than a mile of radium-contaminated storm drains from Building 5 to the Seaplane Lagoon.įive years ago the Navy completed the dredging of the Seaplane Lagoon near the areas where two storm drains discharged water contaminated with a host of toxic chemicals, among those being radium-226. In this case, two heavily-used drain lines led from Building 5 to the Seaplane Lagoon. Up until passage of the federal Clean Water Act of the early 1970s it was standard practice, not just in the military but nationwide, to dump industrial waste material down the drain. The under-slab drain lines were filled with masonry grout.
It was feared that cutting the floor open would undermine the structural integrity of the building. The Navy chose to reroute these roof drains, instead of cutting through the floor slab and removing existing drain lines that were likely contaminated with radium paint waste. Last year the Navy re-routed about a dozen interior roof drains, which used to connect to lines under the building, to a new storm drain connection outside the building. Scanning floor where concrete had been removed. The Navy set a conservative threshold for clearance to meet residential standards, even though only commercial and light industrial is planned for the building. Pockets of the concrete floor were removed with a grinder down to a depth of one inch and refilled. Ventilation duct work, insulation, drop ceiling, lighting, drain pipes, paint booth walls, office walls and a brick wall were removed. Using scanning bars, varying in length from three to five feet and wired to a computer, data was mapped centimeter by centimeter. Worker scanning a wall for radiation in Building 5, Alameda Point, with another worker at computer module. This was a follow-up to the 2010 scanning and removal work.
The potentially affected areas were confined to a small part at the center of the 910,000-square-foot complex. This affected at least five other areas at Alameda Point.ĭuring the summer, the Navy’s contractor scanned floors, walls and ceilings to detect paint residue and radium dust. The procedures for handling and disposing of the paint waste during the 1950s and 1960s led to costly and seemingly interminable cleanup projects once the base closed in 1997. Its risk comes from ingesting the element regularly, such as in industrial settings. Radium is a naturally-occurring element found in miniscule amounts in soil and water posing no health risk. The aircraft hangar complex is where the Navy refurbished its planes, including repainting tiny instrument dials, switches, and markers with glow-in-the-dark paint that contained radium. The Navy has completed the final round of inspections and cleanup of the last traces of the radioactive metal called radium-226 in Building 5 at Alameda Point. ~ Work ends at Building 5 where painting began
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