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posted by cmn32480 on Monday February 15 2016, @12:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the why-are-we-glowing-green dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday February 15 2016, @04:55AM

    by Whoever (4524) on Monday February 15 2016, @04:55AM (#304472) Journal

    Actually many mining companies are avoiding regulations by simply going bankrupt after authorities pressure becomes an issue.

    If there were effective regulation, if would prevent pollution before the mining companies started operating and certainly before any profits are distributed.

    The fact that a business that requires a long time to establish and is fixed in place can pollute, distribute profit to shareholders and then shut down before any effective regulatory action shows just how broken the regulatory system is in extractive industries.

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