The Stories the older guys can tell....

Jims5543 · 12-30-2007, 08:04 PM

I was visiting with my wifes grandfather today. He was telling me a story about a job he had at this new plant run by Sylvania Electric from about 1952 to 1957 in Hicksville Long Island.

He began telling me about how they were working with radioactive materials, they were making what he seemed to describe as radioctive rods for nuclear power. They were 10" long and 1 1/4" diameter. He remembered the exact size.

How told me how they stored the shavings in 55 gallon drums on a large concrete pad outside with garden hoses running in them to keep them cool, the runoff went wherever it wanted, eventually into the ground. This is how they stored the scrap until it was hauled away.

He also told me how someone forgot to put a hose in one of the 55 gallon drums, when they came back to it the next day it had melted through the concrete and was in the ground somewhere, they had to dig it out and recover it.

He also told me one 55 gallon drum exploded taking off like a rocket ship 100's of feet into the air.

There were also radioactive fires in the venting system in the shop where they worked on lathes to machine the rods to the 1 1/4" Diameter.

They all wore "protective suites" consisting of rubber boots, a haz mat type of jumpsuit, a hard hat and goggles. They also wore those pins that showed if they were exposed to too much radiation. He said every week, 2 guys from his crew would be sent home for 2 weeks due to overexposure.

He was made a manager when hired and told me he was scared to death of the radiation, he tried to keep as far away as he could at all times. I was amazed he lasted 5 years there and further amazed he is not riddled with cancer.

I came home and did some google searching, sort of doubting that thay actually did this on Long Island of all places. He was telling the truth.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E3DD1039F930A25752C0A9649C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Quote:

IN 1952, when uranium was scarce like gold in the United States -- the Atomic Energy Commission announced a contract with Sylvania for research on nuclear reactor materials.

Sylvania, one of a long list of corporations with such contracts, soon began processing uranium fuel at the Sylvania Electric Products plant on Cantiague Rock Road in Hicksville.

For the government, the contracts were a way to recycle precious uranium needed to make atomic weapons and to a lesser degree, to generate electricity. For Long Island, the Sylvania plant is a little-known nuclear legacy that has not yet been fully assessed.

From 1952 to 1966, when operations ceased and the plant was torn down, the Hicksville factory worked mostly with uranium and thorium, churning out nuclear reactor fuel for research and possibly for government manufacture at other sites of plutonium used in nuclear weapons.

In the process, it vented gas into the air and discharged wastes laced with industrial solvents and radioactive substances into recharge basins and leaching pools.

Now, 50 years later, radiological and chemical contamination of soil and groundwater remains at the former plant -- one of a string of low-profile nuclear weapons sites across the country that came to light in an article published by USA Today in June.

Another article:
http://www.antonnews.com/hicksvilleillustratednews/2004/07/09/news/

Dan in Pasadena · Dan in Pasadena's Garage

Jim,
I worked with a guy in the Paint Department at Sears when I was 16 and he was probably about 45ish at the time. He claimed he had been in he Army in the post war years when all the atmosheric atomic tests were being done in the Nevada desert.

He said they would march them way the hell out in the desert and would stand behind a short 5-6ft earth berm. When the bomb was denoted they were made to turn their backs and hold their hands over their eyes. When it actually went off he claimed he could see the bones of his hands in front of his closed eyes and if he wasn't careful, would get second degree burns, like bad sunburn boils on the back of his neck. He said he did this 3 times and that over the years lots of his ex buddies had had cancer issues...but he hadn't as of then. That was about 1971 or 72.

Hugh R · 09:28 PM

I went to high school in Oak Ridge, TN in the early 70's. We used to go out and go swimming in some of the flooded gravel pits inside the Oak Ridge National Lab restricted areas (a very large geographic area). One time I got brought home by the Atomic Energy Commission Police. It was explained to me, by my Dad, that it wasn't safe to swim in those quarries because of what had been disposed in them. He assured me that there were 4-eyed lizards in and around those quarries.

In my early career in the early 80's I worked on decommissioning and decontaminating several Department of Defense facilities. One that I did was the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia, PA. They had been making munitions since the war of 1812. We opened up buildings that had cannon balls, PETN, (plastic explosives) soaked into the old oak floors, we pulled up some of those old oak floors and found swimming pool size hexavalent chromium plating baths that were still full of plating solution sludge, and depleted Uranium dust from milling armor piercing shells. We ended up resurrecting a close railroad spur and hauling thousands of tons of Uranium contaminated buildings down to the now closed nuclear disposal site in Barnwell, South Carolina. I also worked on closing a Uranium Hexafluoride (Yellow Cake) facility in Weldon Spring, Missouri. The then contractor Mallinkrodt Chemical lost their contract and they just walked off the job, leaving yellowcake sitting in silos, dust collectors, vent systems, etc. The stuff had sat for several years before the Gubmit got around to deciding to clean it up. There is still lots and lot of high Rad waste sitting in hundreds of rusting drums and tanks in the Hanford facility in Washington state and in Upstate New York. The US Department of Energy and its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission have some of the worst environmental problems of the modern world.

Joeaksa · 12-30-2007, 09:19 PM

This was done at many sites around the country. One of them was a couple of hundred miles away from where we lived. Had a lot of guys who went there for a couple of weeks, then came home to "rest" for a while until their count had gone down.

Joeaksa · 12-30-2007, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

Jim,
I worked with a guy in the Paint Department at Sears when I was 16 and he was probably about 45ish at the time. He claimed he had been in he Army in the post war years when all the atmosheric atomic tests were being done in the Nevada desert.

He said they would march them way the hell out in the desert and would stand behind a short 5-6ft earth berm. When the bomb was denoted they were made to turn their backs and hold their hands over their eyes. When it actually went off he claimed he could see the bones of his hands in front of his closed eyes and if he wasn't careful, would get second degree burns, like bad sunburn boils on the back of his neck. He said he did this 3 times and that over the years lots of his ex buddies had had cancer issues...but he hadn't as of then. That was about 1971 or 72.

Very good friend of mine is in a lawsuit right now over his Father being exposed to this, as as well as the fallout that drifted into many of the high plains areas out in the Western US. Far more people were exposed to this than was admitted to for a long time.