With a welcoming sing that states "The Town That Radiates Friendliness" lays a little town called Port Hope about 100 KM east of Toronto. The town was paramount in early radiation testing, now it's in danger because of that.
The town now needs just that, hope to survive the radioactive contamination that has been blowing around town for more than 70 years.
When a
small group of participants donated urine samples for the
Port Hope Community Health Concerns Committee the samples were found to have radioactive substances.
The substances were not only in those who worked at the local nuclear facilities but average citizens as well. It seems some of those tested had high levels of radioactive isotopes in their bodies but how? Could the soil that the government said was safe not as harmless as reported?
Some of those tested had worked in the plants but they haven't had any direct exposure for decades so how are the levels still so high in their bodies today? Is it possible that the radiation levels of today have been the same as when they were originally exposed?
As the Toronto Star reports:
"People of Port Hope have been continuously and chronically subjected to inhalation of radioactive dust, including depleted uranium and different levels of enrichment of uranium isotopes," Dr. Asaf Durakovic told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.
With those results the health committee called in a research group, the Uranium Medical Research Centre, to look into the matter.
For about 70 years the citizens of Port Hope have been exposed to radioactivity. The source is man-made ceramized, insoluble uranium and during the past 70 years the federal government has not once tested the residents to see if there was only problems. The only reason the testing was done in the first place was residents took matters into their own hands. They could only afford the expensive testing on nine residents.
The town has a population of 16,000 people. It's also home to Cameco uranium refinery and the Eldorado radium plant. The
Eldorado plant was active in the 1930's until 1960 when the mine was exhausted.
In it's beings Eldorado extracted radium from pitchblende. The radium was used in cancer treatments. the product was very valuable selling at US$70,000 per gram. The ore from Eldorado was used in the first chain reaction experiments. Uranium ore from the mine was used in atomic bomb development in 1945.
The soil has been in the process of North America's largest clean up since 2001 when the government committed to removing 3.5 million cubic meters of contaminated soil. The soil contains radium and uranium, as well as arsenic, radon and lead. So why did the people themselves have to test part of the population to see if there were any problems? The government should have wanted to make sure that the residents were safe.
The soil contamination took place before radiation was viewed as a severe threat to human and animal life. For that reason it was deemed low-level historic waste.
Glenn Case of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office said that earlier studies found no need to test the residents of the town. He cited a 1994 study that looked at the potential for ground and surface water contamination and the chances of that exposing humans and found there were no "short-term health risks" and that the radiation levels were within acceptable standards. The thing is if the standards were so acceptable why is 3.5 million cubic meters of soil needing to be removed? And while possible short term health risks are low what about the long term ones?
Right now there are far more questions than answers for the residents of Port Hope. At some point soon the residents deserve some logical and honest answers. They walked for 70 years on the dust of contaminated soil thinking it was safe. Was it? Now it's time for the experts to come and let the residents know what to expect and if the government needs to act on that. Time is not to be wasted for the people's answers.
