EPA Thorium Clean-Up Continues At Ballfields | GCN
Thursday, March 22, 2012
By Sara Martino
Gloucester City News
(Editor’s Note: This is the first of two articles on the EPA’s continuing Superfund Clean-Up in Gloucester City).
The former Welsbach factory near the Delaware River had manufactured gas mantles in Gloucester City from the 1890s to the 1940s in an informational pamphlet.
Using state-of-the-art technology at the time, the wicks for the gas lamps were dipped into radioactive thorium so they would “glow in the dark.”
Unfortunately, the company dumped discarded wicks around Gloucester City.
Over the past 13 years, the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been removing the thorium at various sites.
Last year the EPA completed work on the north ball fields along Johnson Boulevard, and now is continuing the clean-up at the south fields, near Nicholson Road.
In 1980, the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) sponsored a flyover radiological survey in Gloucester City and Camden.
In the early 1990s, based on the survey, the EPA investigated more than 1,000 properties surrounding the two former gas mantle facilities – Welsbach in Gloucester City and General Gas Mantle in Camden City.
Then, in 1996, the Welsbach/General Gas Mantle Site was placed on EPA’s Superfund list, which includes the nation’s most hazardous waste sites.
At Welsbach, most of the factory work was conducted by women who put the gas mantles together.
They were exposed to the thorium and other elements without knowing of the possible dangers of contamination.
Eventually, the electric light replaced gas lighting and the company went out of business in 1940.
General Gas Mantle (GGM) near the waterfront area in Camden – a small competitor to Welsbach operating from 1912 to 1941 – also went out of business.
Waste materials associated with the manufacturing process contain the radioactive elements of thorium and radium.
According to the EPA, these elements give off alpha, beta and gamma radiation, as well as radon gas as part of the process of radioactive decay.
Removal of radiological contaminated soils is being cleaned up currently to a depth of approximately 22 feet deep in an area the size of a football field on the Gloucester City softball and baseball fields, said Rick Robinson, EPA Region 2 Project Manager.
Robinson added that the safe, restored South Fields will use energy efficient “green” lighting. Also, there will be new dugouts and fencing, and the complex will be handicap accessible.
EPA information on the site and updates can be obtained by visiting epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/welsbach/.