Popular Seattle park found to be ‘perfectly safe’ after radiation scare
Mar 7, 2016, 6:16 PM | Updated: May 11, 2016, 10:23 pm
They still work: vintage airplane dials are kept in a locked room at the Museum of Flight, with radium paint to make features glow in the dark. (Ted Huetter/Museum of Flight)
(Ted Huetter/Museum of Flight)
You can walk your dog, play with your kids, and garden at Seattle’s Magnuson Park without fear of radiation exposure.
That’s according to a survey released by Seattle Parks and Recreation on Monday.
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The U.S. Navy repaired planes on Sand Point, where the park is located, from the late ’30s to the early ’60s. In two “radium rooms,” in Buildings 2 and 27, workers used radium paint on airplane dials to make the features glow in the dark.
Still, Joelle Hammerstad, sustainable operations manager for the department, says there’s no historical evidence for anybody to be concerned about radiation exposure in public areas at the park.
“That being said, people were still concerned,” Hammerstad said. “So we decided to commission our own study … [and] hired Thomas Gray and Associates, Inc.”
“They surveyed the housing, the playground, the community garden, the children’s garden, the amphitheater and the dog off-lease area and they found that it was perfectly safe,” she said, noting that it came as no surprise to her.
Jodi Sinclair, Seattle Parks and Recreation Senior Environmental Analyst, says companies used radium paint on all kinds of things back in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s.
“You’d find it in watches, watch repair shops, anyplace where somebody had dials that needed to glow in dark, either commercially or in people’s homes. It was quite common for that time period,” Sinclair said.
The Washington State Department of Health has already worked with the U.S. Navy on cleanup in the buildings which housed the radium room. The department provides a FAQ page, which explains the history and potential health risks.
But before anyone can say with 100 percent certainty that there is absolutely no risk at Magnuson Park, the Navy still needs to release one more report. It’s due out later this year. Health experts believe that report, much like the recently released one from the City of Seattle, will confirm that there’s no risk of exposure to radiation at the park.
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