Grand Canyon visitors 20 years exposed to strong radiation exposure

For nearly two decades, tourists and employees of the National Park in Grand Canyon, Arizona, passed and stayed for a long time in the immediate vicinity of three completely innocuous-looking buckets. Nobody suspected that they were exposed to huge doses of radiation: in buckets there was uranium ore.

Although federal officials learned last June that the nearly 20-gallon buckets were filled with uranium ore, all that was done was removing radioactive samples. The park's safety director claims employees and visitors were given no warning and the site was not properly sanitized, he writes. USA Today.

In an email sent to all Park Service 4 employees in February, security manager Elston Stevenson called the incident a “failure of top management” and warned of possible health consequences.

"If you were in the Museum Collections Building (2C) between 2000 and June 18, 2018, you were 'exposed to uranium exposure,'" Stevenson wrote. “Radiation readings exceed safe limits set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ... Determining who was exposed and to what extent is difficult - and that is our next challenge.”

The building is located in Grand Canyon Village, Arizona.

In an email from 11 in February, Acting Interior Minister David Bernhardt and Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall Stevenson said that he had repeatedly asked national park leaders to inform the public.

“With all due respect, it was not only immoral not to tell our people about this,” he added. “But I could no longer risk my certification if I allowed this to continue.”

According to Stevenson, uranium samples were in the basement at the park’s headquarters for decades and were transferred to the museum building when it opened in the last years of the nineties. One of the buckets was so full that its lid did not close.

Stevenson said that the containers were stored next to the taxidermy exhibit, where the children sometimes stopped for presentations and sat next to uranium 30 for more minutes. These children could receive radiation doses exceeding the allowable, in just 3 seconds, adults would have been enough for half a minute.

Being so close to the uranium buckets could have exposed adults to 400 times the recommended dose, and children 4000 times the recommended dose, Stevenson said.

Emily Davis, a public relations specialist at Grand Canyon, said that a recent survey of the building revealed only background radiation, which is natural in the area and does not go beyond safe. According to her, there is no risk.

Stevenson says his only concern is the safety of those who spent time in the radiation zone. He says he spent 8 months trying to get officials to do something.

Фото: Depositphotos

Buckets of uranium were discovered in March 2018 by a teenage son of a park employee who turned out to be a Geiger enthusiast and brought a radiation meter to the museum. The workers immediately moved the buckets to another place in the building, he said, but nothing more was done.

According to Stevenson, technicians reached the Grand Canyon only 18 June. Without protective clothing and other means. They bought dishwashing gloves and, using a broken mop handle, lifted the uranium buckets into the truck.

These details are confirmed by Stevenson's photographs included in the 45-page slide show, which was created to document the radiative forcing and intended concealment.

Uranium ore was dumped from buckets into the mine of Orfan, an old mine about two miles (3 km) from the Grand Canyon Village. Stephenson ensured that inspectors in protective suits arrived at the building. They found that the buckets inexplicably returned to the buildings after the ore was thrown.

“You should have heard their meters,” Stevenson said. The park did not comment on this information.

In the end, Stevenson received a report submitted by Park Service's regional security manager, confirming that the area was “positive for radioactivity above background” and showing high levels near the taxidermy museum.

The report indicates radiation levels in 13,9 millibers per hour in the place where the buckets were kept, and 800 per hour in contact with the ore. Five feet from the buckets, the numbers were zero. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that the maximum safe dose for a population, in addition to natural radiation, is no more than 2 millibar / hour or 100 per year.

Stevenson calculated the potential impact significantly higher and said that he had forced the park managers to take action, filed a complaint with the inspector general, contacted the FBI, and wrote to every member of Congress.

In a letter to the staff, he stressed that the level of exposure could fluctuate depending on how close people got to the source, how long they were exposed, what was put on them, and other factors. He also noted that the consequences would not necessarily be, but better surveyed.

“Of particular concern are the thousands of children visiting the exhibit in close proximity to uranium,” he wrote. Presentations lasted a half hour or more, but radiation doses could exceed federal safety standards in a matter of seconds.

Read also on ForumDaily:

The first nuclear disaster in Russia, of which very few people know, through the eyes of an eyewitness

How to beat cancer: five scientifically based reasons for optimism

NASA presented projects of residential settlements on Mars. A PHOTO

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.