No abnormal radiation found at Lejeune

[unhappycamper]

No abnormal radiation found at Lejeune
By Mike Baker - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Dec 1, 2007 18:12:07 EST

RALEIGH, N.C. — There are no unnatural levels of radioactivity at a former Navy research facility at Camp Lejeune or near a rifle range at the base where material from the laboratory was buried decades ago, according to an analysis conducted for the military.

Officials at Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps’ primary base on the Atlantic Ocean, sought the analysis after the discovery of a document earlier this year that showed the Navy had buried 160 pounds of soil and two animal carcasses laced with strontium-90, an isotope that causes cancer and leukemia, in a remote area near the rifle range.

According to the paperwork, the waste was later recovered, “safely stored” and was awaiting shipment to an approved disposal site in South Carolina. But base officials said that because of record keeping practices in the early 1980s, the Marine Corps couldn’t find proof the material had been moved.

“We wanted to straighten this out to make sure, so that everybody can have peace of mind,” said base spokesman 1st Lt. Craig Thomas. “The bottom line is, we don’t want to put any buildings into areas that are questionable.”

The material came from a Naval Medical Field Research Laboratory, which operated at the base from 1943 to 1964. Lab researchers worked in a building that’s now part of the base’s Naval Hospital, studying dogs who had been given radioisotopes. Their carcasses were usually burned in a more remote area about a mile away, according to the report.

New World Environmental Inc., the California-based contractor that conducted the analysis, said the incinerator used to burn the dogs sufficiently diluted the radiation.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_radioactive_071201/