Radioactive Soil at the Beach

Here's an interesting article in the LA Times about radioactive soil that's being removed from Ormond Beach in Oxnard, CA.

Some choice parts of the article include:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing the weeklong effort to remove 5,000 cubic yards of soil tainted with the metal thorium, generated by a shuttered metal recycling plant nearby.

Prolonged exposure to the metal or inhalation of thorium dust can increase the risk of bone, lung or pancreatic cancer.

As a precaution, public access to the wetlands at the south end of Perkins Road is blocked until the cleanup is complete.

After the work is completed next month, Wise said he intends to place a 6-foot-high, barbed-wire fence around the slag pile, which contains more than 710,000 cubic yards of spent waste, enough hazardous material to fill more than 1,000 standard-size homes.