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Many are going to ask, "What's so weird about this one corner?" and I'm here to answer.
The end of Irving Avenue, where it meets Moffat Street, in Ridgewood, Queens, is the most radioactive spot in the entire state of New York, and would be the northeast's if not for NJ's McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington County (called "the most contaminated base" in 2007 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency).
In 1918, chemical engineer Alcan Hirsch, and his brother, mining chief Marx Hirsch, opened a chemical plant where today sits most of the businesses on Irving Ave's north side. In 1920, they christen it Hirsch Laboratories, and later added the mining company Molybdenum Corporation (aka Molycorp). The Hirsch brothers sold the lab in 1923 to Harry Wolff and Max Alport, who renamed it Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, but continued their mining operations, and supplied W-A Chemical with the rare-earth metals needed to produce a huge list of products.
The plant processed Monazite sand, which, when treated with Sulfuric Acid, separates into the rare-earth Sodium Sulfate, but also the radioactive waste known as Thorium Pyrophosphate.
It wasn't till the United States' nuclear weapons program in 1942, known as the Manhattan Project, that Thorium became useful. Until 1947, when the Atomic Energy Commission began to purchase the fertile heavy element from Wolff-Alport, and for the full 20-years prior, the Thorium waste was simply dumped into the area's sewers.
"Thorium waste dumped into the area's sewers." Amazing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday February 15 2016, @03:26AM
Not only that, but sodium sulfate is not a rare earth.
Here's another way to see how small the radiation hazard is. Imagine sitting next to a thorium atom. After fourteen and a half billion years, there'd be even odds that it hadn't emitted any radiation yet. If it had, it would have been something that could be blocked by a sheet of paper.
If anyone reflexively say "But it's radiation!", go to https://xkcd.com/radiation/ [xkcd.com] and meditate on how many orders of magnitude lie between being detectable and having health effects.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday February 15 2016, @03:49AM
Imagine sitting next to a thorium atom…. If it had, it would have been something that could be blocked by a sheet of paper.
I don't know, that sheet of paper looks pretty thick and complex from next to my thorium atom! All those carbon compounds, endlessly jittering like junebugs, electron clouds like indecipherable whirlwinds bonding molecules together, and I can't even see any of the nuclei of any of these atoms near me even if I put on my baryon-vision goggles and squint!
Hold on, I think an anti-Tsubasa is approaching.
*annihilates with the anti-Tsubasa in an explosion of photons*
!FTW
.repap fo teehs a yb dekcolb eb dluoc taht gnihtemos neeb evah dluow ti ,dah ti fI .…mota muiroht a ot txen gnittis enigamI
Imagine sitting next to a thorium atom…. If it had, it would have been something that could be blocked by a sheet of paper.
Wait, how'd I get here, and where is that anti-Tsubasa that just formed when I popped out of the quantum vacuum to hit reply going? And why is it walking backwards?!
This world is very confusing. I prefer the macro scale where the XKCD link applies.
(Alice in Quantumland is definitely worth a read. Either that or the sleep meds are starting to take effect. Better go off to count quantum sheep. 1… 2… 5… 3… huh? Oh, the other two were virtual sheep.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:37AM
Thorium 232, the most common isotope of thorium, is an alpha emitter. Alpha particles can indeed be blocked by a sheet of paper. However, if they originate within our bodies they can be harmful, as the energy is deposited in our cells. You're right about the 14-billion-year half-life, but inhaling or ingesting thorium is still not a great idea.