Warbird Information Exchange

From ANN:
Feds Order $7 Million Emergency Cleanup In LA
Removing Radium-Painted Aero Gauges From Warehouse

Federal officials have ordered a $7 million emergency clean-up
of a Los Angeles (CA) warehouse full of old aircraft gauges -- the
kind painted with radium so they would be readable in
low-light.

Radiological tests of the warehouse show radiation at 100 times
the normal for that area, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
More than a million gauges and dials were stored on 12-foot high
shelves. Outside the Preservation Aviation warehouse, radiation in
the storage yard was measured at about 10 times the background
levels.

"We found that the material that's at the site, especially that
in the yard, was posing a hazard to human health and environment at
the sidewalk," said Pete Guria, chief of the EPA's emergency
response office.

The EPA will begin removing the radioactive material around the
middle of next month, according to the Daily News. In the meantime,
government officials hope to have a aviation historian -- perhaps
from the National Air and Space Museum, look at the old gauges.

The gauges, most of them from World War II vintage aircraft,
have been piling up at the warehouse since the 1950s. Jeffrey
Pearson bought the business in 1996, but never completed a full
inventory of the parts on hand.

Radium occurs at low levels in nature. Purified, it glows in the
dark. Originally hailed as a miracle cure, it was used in
everything from hair tonic to toothpaste before scientists
determined it causes cancer.

The dials and gauges at Preservation Aviation wouldn't be a
problem for the environment if many of them weren't cracked or
broken. But when the container in which the radium resides is
cracked, radioactive dust can leak out, again posing a cancer
risk.

Local environmental officials called in the EPA after the
state's cleanup effort appeared to be getting nowhere. But Pearson
apparently doesn't want to give up his antique instruments. Charles
Quilter II, Pearson's friend and an aviation historian himself,
said Pearson has applied for a license to keep the instruments on
site.

"He wants to get his work going again," Quilter said. "His main
goal is to get out the 95 percent of the stuff that doesn't have
radium in it."

I understand he already had a hangar at Chino quarantined a few years back for the same problem...

Wow! 7 million dollars? Heck, I'd take all those instruments off his hands for half that!

_________________
It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Well, I think I can safely say that this was not a surprise to anyone. The radium dial issue has been known for many years. In fact, Otto Instruments at Ontario Airport went through a similar clean-up years ago when the owner of Preservation Aviation was an employee at Otto's. This issue is not a new one for anyone, including those in the UK who were trying to get permision to look inside a certain 4-engined bomber.

An Update:
From:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 039926.htm

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal officials have accelerated a $7 million cleanup at a San Fernando Valley warehouse where up to a million aircraft gauges coated with radioactive radium have been stored for decades.

Environmental Protection Agency workers begin assessing the scope of the cleanup effort this week at North Hollywood's Preservation Aviation, where boxes of gauges are crammed onto shelves 12 feet high.

National security concerns and fear that radioactive material could be stolen and used by terrorists to make a "dirty bomb" have led to additional precautions.

"We don't want people taking souvenirs," agency emergency response coordinator Robert Wise said Monday. "We have 24-hour security on site until we start the cleanup, and then we'll have security on site when we're not (there)."

Officials said it would take six to eight months to remove the vintage airplane gauges, which have dials painted with a phosphorescent material containing Radium 226 to make them glow in the dark for night fights.

Preservation Aviation owners said there are up to 70,000 gauges in the warehouse and that no more than 7,000 are broken. The EPA, called in May to conduct tests, found radiation levels inside the warehouse were 100 times greater than background levels.

Radiation in the yard was 10 times background levels, and a nearby sidewalk was labeled unsafe for those exposed to it over several hours.

"We don't want people going into the structure because radon levels are fairly high. We're still concerned the site poses a threat to public health," Wise said.