Barrington Dog Park Danger

EnviroReporter.com and LA CityBeat break news of a nuclear and chemical biomedical nuclear dump in affluent Brentwood California. Dump is buried on Veterans Administration land under Barrington Dog Park, an arroyo and under the athletic fields of exclusive Brentwood School where Gov. Schwarzenegger's boys have attended. Dog walkers are alarmed by CityBeat's cover story of EnviroReporter.com's 5-year investigation of the forgotten nuclear dump. Irradiated animal carcasses make up most of the waste which includes radioactive tritium and carbon-14 and the chemicals dioxane and toluene. Michael Collins shows radioactive glass he found in dump and tests it on camera with a nuclear radiation monitor and it reads "hot." Collins' revelations later lead to VA committing $1 million to test dump though it says that there is no danger.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Barrington
• Dog
• Park
• radioactive
• biomedical
• nuclear
• dump
• Veterans
• Administration
• EnviroReporter.com
• Michael
• Collins

[EnviroReporter]

Amethyst8teen doesn't source where it comes up with its ionizing radiation figures so no reply to that. However, the 128 counts per minute figure is 3 times background for the area and trips the 'what the hell is that coming from?' trigger level commonly used to investigate in-situ high radiation readings. The comparison to Fiesta Ware dishes is specious.

Heavy metals found in the dump are exceedingly high - arsenic and thallium at chronic levels - and on Brentwood School athletic fields!

[amethyst8teen]

Bottom line: This amount of radiation is negligible and silly to mention.

[EnviroReporter]

The writer here has no clue as to the amount of radiation in the Brentwood nuclear dump because no one does. The VA promised a $1 million excavation and testing of the dump in 12/07 and has done nothing.

Also, when reading this, consider the source: "amethyst8teen" says she's a junior in high school and describes herself like this: "Do not believe everything I say, but think about what I say and what it means to you. It's very difficult to get an honest opinion from me..."

You got that right!

[amethyst8teen]

All I'm saying is the level of ionizing radiation demonstrated in the video is small especially for being from a piece of radioactive lab ware. I mean, my hand had a higher count from touching a piece of carnotite. In the mountains near where I live you can encounter 400 times the normal background radiation. I'm not condoning random waste dumping and definitely think this could develop into a health hazard very easily. I'm not counting danger from heavy metals because it does not interest me.

[amethyst8teen]

Wow, that's a little on the hostile side. And Why can't we bury waste in lead barrels? It isn't because the radiation still escapes, because it doesn't, but relates more to the fact that it must be contained for a very long time, much long that lead barrels can contain it because they will corrode. Then the waste could leach into water and would come in contact with you.

I did read the investigation and one thing I noticed was the lack of actual measurements. Sounds like radiophobia to me.

[sharonripps]

Devon sounds like a dope. Take this gem "The amount of radiation shouldn't really matter if the measurement above ground isn't high, it can't hurt you if it doesn't reach you."

IF that were true, then we could just dump all of our low, medium and high-level radiation waste into lead barrels and bury them anywhere! Sound stupid? Oh yes.

READ Enviroreporter's investigation before making yourself seem so duuuumb, Devon.

[amethyst8teen]

Okay, first of a "she" is a "he." The amount of radiation shouldn't really matter if the measurement above ground isn't high, it can't hurt you if it doesn't reach you. And as for your quote, I stand by that, but you seem to be refusing to process what I'm saying. And you fail to mention the rest of the quote where I say "I do my best to provide you with empirical information. And you still didn't explain how my comparison was specious. I'm more than versed in the area of atomic sciences.

[amethyst8teen]

And also, 128 counts per minute is pretty low as far as radiation goes. If that scares you, go find some old orange fiesta ware dishes (I collect them because they are radioactive) and see what they do to your geiger counter. The combined total of only three dishes is about 20,000 counts per minute. That's 166 times greater than your entire dog park from three dishes! And that doesn't even pose a significant health risk unless i attach them to myself for at least a month. Don't spread fear.

[amethyst8teen]

I think you might be overrating ionizing radiation, Even if you lived on the dump, you would only receive about maybe .2 millirems per hour. you would need at least .5 millirems per hour to meet the annual 5000 millirem limit of health safety, and no noticeable changes occur until you receive more than 10,000 millirems a year. If anything I would worry about heavy metals rather that radiation.

[truthseeker1922]

Great report!

Thank you for posting this.

Love your website too!