Even though the terms "small," "minimal," and "minor" have been used to describe the extent, the basement laboratory in Building 90 of the St. Albans Veterans Administration Extended Care Center (VA) is contaminated with Strontium-90, a potentially hazardous radioactive substance.

Located on a 55-acre site at 179th Street and Linden Boulevard, the government-owned building was once a naval hospital under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense (DOD) and the basement within the structure was used as a Nuclear Medicine Laboratory during the early 1960s. The building was turned over to the VA in 1974.

(Top) The basement of Building 90 at the VA Center in St. Albans is contaminated with Stontium-90, a radioactive substance that can harm people exposed to it. (Above) The administration building is very close to Building 90.

Prior to the turnover, the now defunct Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted a review and did not discover the existing contamination, said John Mazzulla, spokesperson for the director of the VA.

Officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said that technology in detecting small traces of a radioactive substance increased sufficiently over the past 30 years. The floor of the basement is made of concrete which can sometimes mask readings.

The basement has never been used by the VA since the Care Center opened, but the upper three floors were in use until the whole building was decommissioned years ago, according to Mazzulla, who could not confirm the date of closure.

In 1992, during a routine survey of former DOD sites, the Strontium-90 contamination was found, according to Army Corps officials. In 1993 crews were sent in to clean up the site, but did not remove all of the radioactive material. The site was resurveyed in 1997, and in 1998 the NRC issued the VA a license to complete the cleaning.

Licensed by the NRC, Strontium-90 is sometimes used to treat superficial eye conditions and for the calibration of sensitive laboratory equipment, according to officials.

William Valdner, supervisor of nuclear medicine at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens said Strontium-90 was used between 30 and 40 years ago for the above purposes and also to image bones.

"Strontium-90 is one of the high energy isotopes that is an offshoot of nuclear fission," said Valdner. "It has an ionization factor of 10 in the body. Currently, we use Strontium-89, a weaker isotope of Strontium-90, to treat bone cancer," said Valdner.

Valdner also said that the clean-up of radioactive waste is an efficient process, and he would not anticipate anything going wrong during the excavation of the tainted material.

The higher the ionization, the more damage the radiation can cause once it is inside the body, said Valdner, who also stated that Strontium-90 was one of the many contaminants released during the infamous Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union.

Alan Sessoms, a nuclear physicist and president of Queens College, said, "Strontium-90 is used in radiography. The contamination is not likely to migrate very far."

Mark Roberts, a spokesperson for the NRC, said that Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28 years and can act like calcium when it gets inside the body.

"Strontium-90 bonds to bones and can harm bone marrow in sufficient concentrations. However, the amount present in St. Albans does not present the largest hazard - not to say it isn’t important - but it’s locked up and not going anywhere," said Roberts.

The contamination is said to be confined to the lab and the adjacent men’s bathroom, but severe precautions have to be taken to ensure containment of the radioactive Strontium-90 particles, according to officials at the Army Corps of Engineers.

"There is about 1600-cubic feet – or 60 yards – of contaminated material that will have to be removed," said Randy Godfrey, of the New England District Army Corps of Engineers, who is working on the St. Albans project. "The concrete floor is 12 - 14 inches thick and contamination is restricted to the top 1 - 2 inches only."

"A meeting will occur in June that will be open to the public. VA is confident that the Army Corps of Engineers, the NRC, and the contractor who will be removing the waste will put on a more informative presentation to the community," said Mazzulla.

Strontium-90 levels are measured in picocuries per gram (pci/g). The level in the basement is 2,000 pci/g and the Corps has to bring that reading down to 35 pci/g, which is the Derived Concentration Guideline Limit - safe for humans to be around.

There are currently two tentative plans for removing the contaminated materials from the basement level proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The first method is to place contaminated material in small receptacles which are then sealed. Next, a surface contamination survey is performed before it is moved to non-controlled areas.

The second method is more involved, but it allows more material to be transported at once. A lift would have to be built through the lab to the ground floor, which would have to be covered with a polyethylene sheeting to protect uncontaminated areas. A radiological control zone would have to be established, resulting in plastic barriers that would encapsulate the area and temporary buildings would be assembled to package the material.

Both plans require the use of HEPA filtration systems and special vacuums to capture dust and then for the transportation of the waste to an out of state facilities in Texas or Utah, officials said.

Once the areas are cleaned, engineers will conduct a final survey to determine the success of the operation.

Lost in the plans is the consideration of the water system in the St. Albans area. Area residents get their water from the ground, unlike most of New York City, said Leroy Comrie, spokesperson for Councilman Archie Spigner.

"If [Strontium 90] can leak through concrete how far down could it go? There has never been any watertable testing," said Comrie. "The Army Corps of Engineers won’t know until they remove the waste."

Godfrey said that Strontium-90 is "serious stuff," but the level and location of this contamination "does not pose a threat to humans or the environment."

"When the lab was in use the floor drains may have been open and will have to be checked," said Godfrey. "[The drains] have since been sealed up."

Godfrey also said that there were traces of Strontium-90 in the soil under the complex, and it would have to be surveyed once the project is completed.

The subject of radioactive contamination is disturbing in any form, and area residents may be alarmed that a radioactive spill has existed within their community since at least 1973, when the lab was no longer needed. The spill has been known by the government since 1992 and only a partial removal of Strontium-90 was undertaken in 1993, according to officials.

"Eight years would seem to be a long time that you would be given to clean up a contamination, but again, its all sealed up," said Godfrey.

"There are tons of radioactive and non-radioactive dumps sitting unattended all over this country," said Dr. Steve Markowitz, director of the Center for Biology and Natural Systems at Queens College. "If no one has access to the area then there is no danger. If the soil is contaminated it will have to be investigated, as well as the possibility of leakage into the ground water."

Ron Bellamy, chief of the decommission branch of the NRC, said, "There will be some migration of liquids through concrete."

Bellamy also said that the delay for decontamination of the St. Albans site lies in the Decommissioning Timeliness Rule (DTR). The DTR grants the agency responsible for clean-up one year to develop a plan, and two years to implement the plan.

Bellamy was not aware of the partial clean-up in 1993, but said that before action can be taken on a site the party responsible for the contamination must be identified. Since the spill occurred many years ago, the fault could not be easily placed. The site is a government property and the Army Corps of Engineers subsequently took responsibility for the site, according to Bellamy.

Officials at the NRC said that the rules for decontaminating and decommissioning radioactive waste sites are the same for government agencies and for citizens that could potentially own contaminated properties.

Queens will have to wait until the Army Corps of Engineers complete their work to determine the extent of the damage - if any - caused by Strontium-90 in a former Nuclear Medicine Laboratory near the heart of a residential population in southeast Queens.

"Eight years would seem to be a long time that you would be given to clean up a contamination, but again, it’s all sealed up."

Randy Godfrey, New England Army Corps of Engineers