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When a truck of scrap metal caused radiation alarms to sound at a recycling facility in Baltimore, it marked the beginning of a successful radioactive waste cleanup for MDE’s Radiological Health Program (RHP).
At the Chesapeake Airway Service Corporation on the Eastern Shore, RHP inspectors discovered approximately 6,200 World War II aircraft dials containing radium-226. Because of its luminescent qualities, radium-226 was often used in paint to make dials visible at night.
Radium-226 is a naturally occurring radioactive material that poses serious health risks, including cancer, to those exposed. Under federal and State law, MDE is charged with ensuring that the public is protected from unnecessary levels of radiation. The general public and the environment are at risk if the users and handlers of radioactive materials and radiation producing devices fail to recognize potential hazards or to follow proper safety practices and procedures.
For many years, Chesapeake Airway Service Corporation had acquired vintage aircraft parts for resale to collectors, keeping parts that were not sold in storage at their facility. As a result, RHP inspectors identified a large inventory of World War II aircraft parts including altimeters, air speed gauges, switches, oxygen regulators, and test kits containing radium paint stored in the Corporation’s facility warehouses and on the ground outside the buildings. Some of the gauges had been damaged, resulting in the release of small levels of radium-226 that contaminated both the floors and the soil outside of the building.
Chesapeake Airway Service Corporation cooperated with MDE and agreed to an Administrative Order laying out requirements to assure the security and temporary safe storage of the radium-226 gauges and devices until the radium hazard could be addressed. A private radiation consultant developed a plan, which MDE approved, for a phased approach to remove and clean up the radioactive material.
The disposal of radioactive material at a licensed facility is expensive. Despite some complicated funding issues, by working together, Wicomico County, MDE, the Federal Aviation Association, and Chesapeake Airways remediated the property in a safe and legal manner without the use of EPA's Superfund, saving taxpayers millions of dollars. Approximately 6,200 gauges were sealed in drums and shipped to a licensed disposal facility, and the stone and concrete rubble containing residual radium-226 was safely removed and shipped. MDE is reviewing a confirmatory survey of the property for final assurance that the radiological hazard has been completely removed.
To protect the health of all Marylanders, the State must not only regulate standard sources of potential radiological hazards but also investigate atypical challenges. The situation at Chesapeake Airway Service Corporation called for proactive and efficient action. MDE’s Radiological Health Program responded accordingly, from the immediate investigation to the final phases of cleanup, and we now reflect with pride as the three year project comes to a close.
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