[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION: Chromium at former UC Davis animal lab

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

UC Davis may have solved mystery of chemical contamination

Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee (CA)
February 6, 2010


A dangerous chemical on the site of a former animal-testing laboratory 
at UC Davis may not have come from experiments there, but rather from a 
chemical reaction underground in the years since.

For 30 years starting in 1958, the Laboratory for Energy-Related Health 
Research was, for some, a place of discovery. For others it was a source 
of nightmares.

The lab conducted Cold War-inspired research for the U.S. Department of 
Energy, including exposing beagles to lethal radiation to judge how 
humans might survive.

Waste from those experiments, including hundreds of radioactive dog 
carcasses, was dumped on-site in crudely built landfills. The 15-acre 
location south of Interstate 80 was declared a federal Superfund site in 
1994, a category reserved for the nation's most toxic industrial facilities.

Yet the presence of cancer-causing chromium-6 on the site has been a 
mystery. There is no evidence the chemical was used at the lab, said Sue 
Fields, an environmental engineer at the university. And the plume of 
chromium-6 in groundwater is strangely isolated rather than linked to a 
particular disposal are

...


For the entire article, see
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2517361.html


--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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