Tag: radioactive

LEGACY OF CONTAMINATION. A California Naval base shutters, and contamination lingers decades later/ Reuters

Article Link
Reuters looks into the nuclear contamination of the EPA Superfund site, Treasure Island which is in San Francisco Bay and it is being developed by contractors with close ties to Bay Area politicians. The City put low income housing on the former barracks and houses on the site. People are getting sick. The Navy and the city are trying to cover this up but kids are finding radioactive materials all over the island.

One girl who became ill had a jewelry box her “Treasure Box” with radium painted dials and radioactive beads. [Editors note: Fallout beads]

Disaster Area Editor:
Why would these be on Treasure Island? Treasure Island was the Navy’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical training school. They are exactly the thing you need to train sailors on how to detect radiation and so they buried these things in the ground for the sailors to find. And that is the only way they could have been dug up by this little girl in her yard or on the playground at her school on Treasure Island.

Most military bases who operated ships and airplanes had radium painted dials and markers used to operate machines, engines etc in no-light situations. When they realized that these markers were radioactive and that they were dangerous, these bases removed them and buried them in the ground, with no care that it might spread the contamination into the water table.

Most EPA superfund sites for military bases have the radium dial markers as one of the things that make it a federal cleanup site. Usually there are others like PCBs (dioxin) and Trichloroethylene (TCE), unexploded ordinance (which is quite common in the Bay Area). You can search for these specific chemicals on the Envirostor website which is the State of California’s Toxic Waste site or on the GeoTracker site which covers California and federal cleanup sites. The Geotracker map shows little squares that indicate a toxic waste location and if you click on them it will show the name of the site.

Treasure Island, in San Francisco CA the Navy’s Atomic, Biological and Chemical (ABC) School Course List

Treasure Island which is being developed for real estate by builders with political connections even though it is an EPA Superfund site for Nuclear Radiation; the city of San Francisco placed public housing on the site in the former barracks of the base. For background on this problem look at this article by Reuters “A California Naval base shutters, and contamination lingers decades later” CONDEMNED: After the Navy closed the Treasure Island base in 1997, San Francisco planned much-needed new housing. Decades later, pollution lingers, leaving new housing a mirage.” REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage.

This is a course list from 1978 of the courses provided on the Island at the US Navy’s Command School and Damage Control School. Note the Atomic, Biological and Chemical (ABC) school was renamed Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) school.

The school built a mockup of a ship USS Pandemonium which they laced with Radioactive Isotopes and the sailors learned to find the radiation and use various techniques to clean the ship by hand and also use fire-fighting hoses to spray the radiation off of the ship and down the drain into the Bay. Also they buried radioactive materials all over the island for the sailors to find.

This most likely explains how a little girl had fallout beads in her treasure box, along with radium dials that were removed from ships which she found digging for “Treasure” on Treasure Island! Fallout varies in size the larger closer into a nuclear blast and when it forms, it becomes a bead or drop shaped piece of glass. The US Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory at Hunters Point Shipyard collected fallout at nuclear tests by specifically collecting this fallout for study by building collectors placed at the Nuclear Test Sites.

The Courses:

Guide to the Evaluation of Educational Experiences in the Armed Services. The 1978 Guide. 3: Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy.
American Council on Education, Washington, DC Office on Educational Credit
Department of Defense, Washington, DC 1978

NV-0801-0004 NBC DEFENSE FOR PETTY OFFICERS

Course Number: Not available.
Location: Version I: Damage Control Training Center, Philadelphia, PA.
Version 2: Damage Control School, Treasure Island, CA.
Length: 3 weeks (90 hours).
Exhibit Dates: 5/68-Present.
Objectives: To train personnel to perform as advanced damage-control men strikers.
Instruction: Lectures and practical exercises in nuclear, biological, and chemical defense afloat, including classification, detection, and decontamination of BW /CW agents and nuclear radiation; operation and maintenance of radiac equipment, maintenance of protective clothing and masks; training of personnel in monitoring and decontamination procedures for repair parties; nuclear warfare defense; and NBC warfare defense organization.
Credit Recommendation: No credit because of the military nature of the course (5/74).

NV-0801-0005 NBC WARFARE DEFENSE ASHORE

Course Number: A-7K-011.
Location: Version 1: Army Chemical School, Ft. McClellan, AL. Version 2: Schools Command, Treasure Island, CA.
Length: 6 weeks (168-185 hours).
Exhibit Dates: 4/66 – Present.
Objectives: To Train officers to perform as disaster control officers for shore establishments.
Instruction: Lectures and practical exercises in disaster control procedures, including organization; nuclear, biological and chemical agents and effects; nuclear, biological and chemical warfare defense and accident control; disaster control operation; radiological detection; and decontamination.
Credit Recommendation: no credit because of the military nature of the course (12/68)

NV-0802-0001 ABC DEFENSE FOR SHIPBOARD INSTRUCTORS

Course Number: None
Location: Damage Control Training Center, Treasures Island, CA
Length: 3 Weeks (104 hours).
Exhibit Dates: 1/62-12/68
Objectives: To train enlisted personnel to assist officers in organizing and donducting training programs in shipboard defense.
Instruction: Lectures in instructor training and in nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare defense afloat.
Credit Recommendation: In the vocational certificate category, 1 semester hour in occupational safety (1/74), in the lower division baccalaureate/associate degree category, 1 semester hour in occupational safety (1/74)

NV-0802-0008 ABC WARFARE DEFENSE AFLOAT

Course Number: Not available.
Location: Version 1: Damage Control Training Center, Philadelphia, PA. Version 2: Schools Command, Treasure Island, CA
Length: 5 weeks (123-174 hours).
Exhibit Dates: 12/59-12/68.
Objectives: To train officers in atomic, biological, and chemical warfare defense afloat.
Instruction: Lectures and practical exercises on ABC warfare defense afloat including atomic, biological, and chemical warfare effects on personnel, ships and equipment; methods used to reduce or negate these effects; casualty minimization; requirements of shipboard ABC-damage control; radiological detections; nuclear weapon accidents, protection and decontamination; disaster recovery; shipboard organization, and anti-personnel biological warfare.
Credit Recommendation: No credit because of the specialized nature of the course (12/68).

NV-1715-0545 RADIAC INSTRUMENT MAINTENANCE

Course Number: A-670-0020.
Location: Version 1: Damage Control School, Treasure Island, CA. Version 2: Naval Schools Command, Treasure Island, CA/
Length: Version 1: 5 weeks (82 hours). Version 2: 4 weeks (90 hours).
Exhibit Dates: Version 1: 8/70-Present.
Version 2: 1/66-7/70.
Objectives: To Train enlisted personnel to be radiac technicians.
Instruction: Lectures and practical exercises in operation, maintenance, and repair of radiation related equipment, including dosage hazards, radiological monitoring and decontamination; basic nuclear physics; radiac computer indicator, detector, and calibrator maintenance; radioactive sources leak testing, atomic energy commission license requirements, electronics review; and standard test equipment.
Credit Recommendation: Version 1: In the vocational certificate category, 2 semester hours in radiation equipment maintenance (4/74); in the lower-division baccalaureate/associate degree category, 2 semester hours in radiation equipment maintenance, and credit in physics laboratory on the basis of institutional examination (4/74); in the upper-division baccalaureate category, credit in electrical laboratory on the basis of institutional examination (4/74). Version 2: In the vocational certificate category, 1 semester hour in radiation equipment maintenance (4/74); in the lower-division (redacted) baccalaureate/associated degree category, 1 Semester hour in radiation equipment maintenance, and credit in physics laboratory on the basis of instructional examination (4/74); in the upper-division baccalaureate category, credit in electrical laboratory ON THE BASIS OF INSTITUTIONAL EXAMINATION (4/74).

NV-1728-0012 DAMAGE CONTROLLMEN CLASS A HT-A PHASE 1

Course Number: A-780-0035; A-780-0036.
Location: Damage Control Training Center, Philadelphia, PA; Damage Control Training Center, Treasure Island, CA.
Length: 7-8 weeks (240 hours).
Exhibit Dates: 7/70-Present.
Objectives: To train enlisted personnel in damage control techniques.
Instruction: Lectures and practical exercises in hull and hull system, casualty control, shoring, hull and pipe patching, plastic repairs, firefighting, basic nuclear physics, characteristics of nuclear bursts, classification and detection of biological and chemical agents, shipboard decontamination, use and care of oxygen breathing equipment.
Credit Recommendation: In/the vocational certificate category, 1 semester hour in firefighting, 3 in damage control (5/74); in the lower-division baccalaureate/associate degree category, 1 semester hour in firefighting, 3 in damage control (5/74)

Naval Standards

Apprentice (E-2)

914 NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL (NBC) DEFENSE

914201 Use of protective mask in a chamber or environment of riot control agent (CS) or dense smoke
914202 Use of currently issued protective and self-aid equipment and methods of adapting regularly issued clothing and equipment for protection against contamination.
914203 Markers used to indicate that an area in contaminated
914204 Means by which biological operation agents enter the body
914205 Methods of dissemination of agents : (A) aerosols; (B) sabotage
914206 Methods used to decontaminate personnel

914207 Use of atropine
914208 Characteristics and effects of the following: (A) nerve agents; (B) blister agents; (C) blood agents; (D) choking agents; (E) screening agents
914209 Protective measures to be followed in the event of NBC attack
914210 Duties of member of a decontamination team
914211 Duties of member of a monitoring team other than monitor
914212 General procedures to be followed prior to, during, and after attack as set forth in the NBC defense bills

Apprentice (E-3)

914 NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL (NBC) DEFENSE

914301 Effects of nuclear radiation (alpha and beta particles, gamma rays and neutrons)
914302 Meanwhile of the following terms as applied to radiological defense: (A) radiac; (B) radiation dose; (C) radiation dose rate; (D) safe stay time; (E) material condition “Circle William”
914303 Differences between radiation and radiological contamination
914304 Purpose and use of the casualty dosimeter in terms of when used, by whom, and for what purpose
914305 Purpose, use of, and how to interpret a self-reading pocket dosimeter

Petty Officer Second Class (E-5)

914 NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL (NBC) DEFENSE

914501 Basic organization of teams to decontaminate radioactive areas and areas contaminated by chemical or biological agents.