[CPEO-MEF] Radium dials from old military aircraft

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Chino Airport to clean radium contamination 

By Megan Blaney
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (CA)
April 12, 2005 

CHINO -- One man's hobby to collect vintage airplanes will cost San
Bernardino County nearly $200,000 to clean up radioactive material - at
least temporarily.

The county will seek reimbursement after cleaning up the radium-226
contamination at Chino Airport, where Jeff Pearson, owner of
Preservation Aviation, Inc., stores vintage airplanes containing the
material. The radioactive material was used on the predominantly
American military aircraft to illuminate instrument dials. The aircrafts
date mostly from World War II through the 1960s.

"In both hangars, there is a quantity of old aviation instruments that
have the radium painted on the dial," San Bernardino County Director of
Airports Bill Ingraham said Monday.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21481~2812918,00.html

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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