The federal-state emergency cleanup of hundreds of thousands of World War II aircraft instruments with radioactive dials in warehouses in Columbia, Marietta, Maytown and Mount Joy is 90 percent complete.

But the cost of the removal has mushroomed from an initial ceiling of $250,000 in January 2008 to $5.7 million.

"As far as the immediate threat, we no longer have a concern that if one of these warehouses would go up in flames, that radioactive material would go into the air," says Bob Maiers, chief of the decommissioning and environmental surveillance division in the state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Radiation Protection.

"There's a lot of good news here. It was quite an operation."

Since March 2008, contractors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Strube Inc., a Marietta-based aircraft instrument sales and refurbishment contractor, have packaged and hauled away an estimated 500,000 instruments and artifacts with radium material.

Most of the material is being shipped to the federal government's nuclear-waste burial ground in Hanford, Wash.

The founder of Strube, now deceased, began purchasing large quantities of military surplus aircraft parts, beginning soon after World War II. In 2008, after the artifacts had sat in warehouses for decades, DEP ordered the material removed.

The radium dials did not pose an immediate health threat to surrounding residents, but officials worried that a fire could send plumes of radioactivity and mercury exposure into residential areas.

When DEP and current Strube officials could not agree on a cleanup plan, DEP called in federal officials. EPA obtained a warrant from a U.S. magistrate to inspect the materials.

After the cleanup began, mercury, lead, PCBs and other toxic materials were found in some of the material.

EPA recently finished radiation response activities and is in the process of turning the remainder of the cleanup work over to DEP.

Strube has submitted final cleanup plans to DEP for two Marietta warehouses so that they can use them again. DEP is reviewing both that and Strube's cleanup plans for the remainder of the work at the various warehouses.

"We will negotiate with (Strube) on the timeline. They want many more years, but we're not really comfortable with that," says Maiers.

EPA recently approved an additional $3,781,600 in funds for the cleanup, according to Roy Seneca, an agency spokesman.

EPA has said Strube could ultimately be responsible for direct and indirect cleanup costs in the amount of $7.6 million.


Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.