July 31, 1999
Landfill contains strontium
By Carol Bogart
Staff Writer
Strontium detected at a closed Tiffin landfill will be re-tested to determine what kind of strontium it is.
So says Jeff Steers, assistant director of Ohio EPA's Bowling Green office.
While limestone fossils like those found throughout Seneca County are, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, rich in naturally occurring strontium, some types of strontium are man-made and are used in various industries.
Because Charlotte Seifert and others have asked about the possible presence of radioactive or other strontium wastes at the Tiffin landfill on CR 90, strontium found in a surface water seep in the vicinity of buried wastes will, Steers says, be further analyzed by Ohio EPA's lab in Columbus.
Radioactive strontium emits beta particles. Gross beta was detected when one surface water sample was screened for gross alpha/gross beta. The U.S. EPA's maximum contaminant level for gross beta in drinking water is 50 picocuries per liter. The level in the surface water sample was 35.
Strontium 90 is associated with nuclear power plants. It is also found in generators used to create low-voltage power for such things as lights on buoys.
Other types of strontium hazardous to human health are used in industries such as sugar beet refining, medicine, ceramics production and pigments.
Strontium 90, medical researchers say, is particularly hazardous because it can be deposited in the bones of animals and humans. Research links it to leukemia, bone cancer, impairment of the immune system and lung cancer (if inhaled.)
Another type, strontium chromate, is defined by the Environmental Defense Fund as a "recognized carcinogen ... used in (certain) building materials and furnishings."
Even if strontium detected at the landfill turns out to be naturally occurring, Jim Evans, head of Ohio EPA's division of drinking and groundwater in Columbus, says the recommended maximum lifetime ingestion is 17 milligrams per liter. Jack Cramer of Heidelberg's water quality lab says 1 in 30 wells in Seneca County tests high for strontium.
Growing bones, studies show, confuse strontium for calcium. A radiophysician at U.S. EPA says bones weakened by strontium may develop rickets or be otherwise malformed. The agency says insufficient study has been done to know whether excess naturally occurring strontium heightens the risk of cancer.
A boy scout well north of the landfill was tested for gross alpha/gross beta, a measurement for elevated levels of radioactivity. Any levels present were below those deemed unacceptable by U.S. EPA.
No samples of any kind, gross alpha/gross beta or otherwise, have been taken south or east of the landfill by Hull and Associates or Ohio EPA.
The east edge and south end of the landfill contain trenches, some of which were used for dumping of 27-gallon drums of various wastes.