[CPEO-MEF] APG tells residents its cleanup plans for radioactive waste site at

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Maryland
BALTIMORE SUN
APG tells residents its cleanup plans for radioactive waste site at
Edgewood
By Lane Harvey Brown
Sun Staff
Originally published July 18, 2003

Army officials shared with a small group of Harford community residents
last night plans to clean up contaminated soil at a site on the Bush
River once used to process radioactive waste for deep-sea dumping.

Workers contracted by the Army are to remove about 11,000 cubic yards of
soil and debris from the 3.1-acre site in the Edgewood area of the
Aberdeen Proving Ground, officials say. The project is expected to cost
about $2 million and take about six months to complete.

The processing site, called the RAD Yard by APG officials, was the East
Coast collection point for the Army's radioactive medical and research
waste in the 1950s and 1960s.

Before that, it was home to the Toxic Gas Yard, where mustard agent and
other dangerous chemical weapons were stored until World War II.

The radioactive waste was boiled down and mixed with concrete in
55-gallon drums before it was loaded onto ships for deep-sea dumping,
which was one of the approved disposal methods at the time, officials
say. Left behind at the site is contamination including radioactive
isotopes cesium-137 and cobalt-60, as well as arsenic - likely left over
from vomiting agents such as lewisite.

Project manager Don Green said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
requires APG to remove the contaminated soil.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-md.rad18jul18,0,1094526.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

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