Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Dick Russell on the State of the Striped Bass
TESTIMONY OF DICK RUSSELL
Author, Striper Wars
H796, An Act relative to the conservation of Atlantic striped bass
Massachusetts Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture
January 14, 2010
I thank you for allowing me to testify today on what I believe is an urgent conservation measure, vital to preserving for our children and grand-children the most magnificent fish that swims our near-shore waters. I am an environmental journalist and the author of six books, including one called Striper Wars, about the fish that is the subject of this hearing. And today I hope to offer some historical perspective, along with the reasons why H796 needs to be passed during the current legislative session.
Striped bass have been called the aquatic equivalent of the American bald eagle. Without Native Americans having taught the Pilgrims about how to take striped bass, they would not have survived their first difficult winters in the Plymouth Colony. Protection of striped bass was the reason for America’s very first conservation law, in 1639, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony general court ruled they were too valuable to be ground up and used for fertilizer. The first fishery management measures, in 1776, were also drawn up on the striper’s behalf.
I have been fishing recreationally for striped bass off Martha’s Vineyard for almost four decades now. In the early 1980s, I became deeply involved in what became a coastwide campaign to try to save them from the Endangered Species List, organizing petition drives and a national conference. At the time, federal scientists trying to pinpoint a cause for why striped bass were disappearing from our waters cited pollution in the Chesapeake Bay spawning grounds as one reason. The other factor was clearly overfishing, and only this could be addressed immediately. There was a management plan in place, but it obviously didn’t go far enough. There were fewer and fewer striped bass around. That was why a grassroots effort of concerned fishermen was needed, and eventually we saw some incredible results. After Maryland declared a five-year moratorium on striper fishing and other states followed with similarly strong measures, the fish made an amazing comeback. In 1995, Scientific American magazine wrote: “The resurgence of striped bass along the eastern coast of the U.S. is probably the best example in the world of a species that was allowed to recoup through tough management and an intelligent rebuilding plan.”
I wish I could say that was the start of a success story we are still witnessing today. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’m afraid we are on the verge of seeing another population crash, as serious as the one that almost wiped out the striped bass fishery two decades ago. For the past several years, landings have been down all along the coast. A graph compiled by the Coastal Conservation Association shows that the number of striped bass encountered by recreational fishermen has decreased by more than 50 percent since 2006. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s winter tagging cruise, conducted in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina for many years, came across the fewest striped bass ever. Every year since the mid-fifties, fishery scientists have sampled the water in a number of places in the Chesapeake Bay to see how many fish were spawned that spring. It’s called the striped bass young-of-the-year index, and there has been a steady decline over the past decade. 2007 saw the lowest number of juveniles since 1990, when the population was just emerging from near-total collapse.
So what is going on? Part of it, we know, has to do with what’s happening in the Chesapeake, where at least 75 percent of the migrating striped bass originate. In 2008, scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science published a study showing that a chronic disease called mycobacteriosis is now at epidemic proportions. It’s been detected in sixty percent of the Chesapeake’s striped bass – and it eventually kills them. The disease began showing up a decade ago, sometimes in the form of skin lesions and often eating away at the fish from within. For humans handling infected fish with an open wound, scientists advise wearing gloves to avoid “fish handler’s disease” that can lead to arthritis-like joint problems. Mycobacteriosis has now spread to the Delaware Bay system, and has been seen in striped bass all along the coast, including here in Massachusetts.
The latest scientific study calls it a “stress disease.” Many of the diseased fish are also emaciated. So what seems to be happening is that the striped bass aren’t getting enough to eat. The Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation recently determined that malnutrition observed in more than 5,000 stripers is a consequence of what’s called “ecological depletion.” Menhaden, a small bony fish that swims in huge schools, is the striped bass’ primary food of choice. But its numbers are way down in the Chesapeake Bay. A single company, Omega Protein out of Reedville, Virginia is netting millions of menhaden annually to be ground up into fish meal and fish oil. A cap on the harvest that was first put in place in 2006 has not proved effective, because menhaden landings since then have averaged 30 percent below the cap. Things have gotten desperate enough for striped bass, bluefish, and other larger predators in the Bay that federal legislation for a complete moratorium on taking menhaden in Chesapeake waters has been introduced.
That probably needs to happen. So does what scientists call “ecosystem management,” taking into account not only pollution and climate change but that big fish need to eat smaller fish to survive. We must do that in Massachusetts, too, where the river herring are being eliminated by the big trawling ships. But when it comes to striped bass, we need to act, and soon, to stave off another crisis. It’s all too similar to the situation in the 1980s, when the only immediate thing to do was to cut back on the fishing pressure.
You will hear from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that the resource is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Yet the allowable catch levels and quotas are still based on a theoretical abundance of fish from the Nineties – and that abundance no longer exists. At the same time, illegal black market fishing is rampant. In February 2009, five watermen in the Chesapeake Bay region pleaded guilty to poaching more than $2 million of striped bass – something like 600,000 fish – and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Until recently, I resisted supporting a ban on commercial sale of wild striped bass in our state. But I have come to the conclusion that this is necessary, for the fish’s sake. And there is a strong precedent for it. Already the majority of coastal states through which the bass migrate have made striped bass a gamefish, including Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC and South Carolina. New York allows no commercial sale because of high levels of PCB’s in the fish’s flesh. Many of these measures, I might add, were done by state legislatures.
By far the biggest commercial harvest of striped bass along the coast occurs off Massachusetts, where half the fish’s population spend their summers. In 2009, Massachusetts commercial striped bass fishermen landed 1,160,453 pounds of fish. But this is not a significant portion of yearly income for any commercial fisherman. Only a very small number of commercial striped bass permit holders rely on sale of the fish to help support their families. The majority of these license holders sell stripers to help support their hobby.
I am in favor of a dedicated fund to buy back commercial striped bass permits on an amortized basis. And there is no reason that should not come from a saltwater license fee on recreational fishermen. We need to do our share, and the measures outlined in this bill – one fish a day instead of two, and only at a fixed minimum or maximum size limit in order to protect the most spawning female fish – would achieve that.
Some people say, what will restaurants and supermarkets do that depend on striped bass to help with income in the summertime? The fact is that farm-raised striped bass already comprise more than 60 percent of the market. The taste, and the price, is comparable to that of wild-caught fish. Fish raised in ponds or other enclosed systems are not tainted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants found at levels high enough in ocean stripers to warrant health advisories against consuming them in many states. The Environmental Defense Fund recommends that people eat only farm-raised stripers, and this legislation would require any that are sold to bear a tag from the grower or distributor.
A century ago, market hunting drove many species of game birds and animals almost to extinction until the practice was outlawed. In recent years, we have seen red drum become a recreational-only species in Florida, and sea trout and redfish in Texas, because there weren’t enough fish to also support a commercial industry. Given all the problems striped bass are facing today, I don’t feel there is any choice but to follow such precedents. We are seeing all the same warning signs that appeared during the near-catastrophic decline of the 1980s. They are signs that weren’t reacted to, until it was almost too late. This time, the coming crash would be worse than before, because there are more fishermen with much more deadly fishing techniques. We cannot afford to wait until it takes intervention from the U.S. Congress and a moratorium to save and then restore the fishery. Massachusetts was a leader in striped bass conservation once. We need to be so again. Thank you.
Author, Striper Wars
H796, An Act relative to the conservation of Atlantic striped bass
Massachusetts Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture
January 14, 2010
I thank you for allowing me to testify today on what I believe is an urgent conservation measure, vital to preserving for our children and grand-children the most magnificent fish that swims our near-shore waters. I am an environmental journalist and the author of six books, including one called Striper Wars, about the fish that is the subject of this hearing. And today I hope to offer some historical perspective, along with the reasons why H796 needs to be passed during the current legislative session.
Striped bass have been called the aquatic equivalent of the American bald eagle. Without Native Americans having taught the Pilgrims about how to take striped bass, they would not have survived their first difficult winters in the Plymouth Colony. Protection of striped bass was the reason for America’s very first conservation law, in 1639, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony general court ruled they were too valuable to be ground up and used for fertilizer. The first fishery management measures, in 1776, were also drawn up on the striper’s behalf.
I have been fishing recreationally for striped bass off Martha’s Vineyard for almost four decades now. In the early 1980s, I became deeply involved in what became a coastwide campaign to try to save them from the Endangered Species List, organizing petition drives and a national conference. At the time, federal scientists trying to pinpoint a cause for why striped bass were disappearing from our waters cited pollution in the Chesapeake Bay spawning grounds as one reason. The other factor was clearly overfishing, and only this could be addressed immediately. There was a management plan in place, but it obviously didn’t go far enough. There were fewer and fewer striped bass around. That was why a grassroots effort of concerned fishermen was needed, and eventually we saw some incredible results. After Maryland declared a five-year moratorium on striper fishing and other states followed with similarly strong measures, the fish made an amazing comeback. In 1995, Scientific American magazine wrote: “The resurgence of striped bass along the eastern coast of the U.S. is probably the best example in the world of a species that was allowed to recoup through tough management and an intelligent rebuilding plan.”
I wish I could say that was the start of a success story we are still witnessing today. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’m afraid we are on the verge of seeing another population crash, as serious as the one that almost wiped out the striped bass fishery two decades ago. For the past several years, landings have been down all along the coast. A graph compiled by the Coastal Conservation Association shows that the number of striped bass encountered by recreational fishermen has decreased by more than 50 percent since 2006. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s winter tagging cruise, conducted in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina for many years, came across the fewest striped bass ever. Every year since the mid-fifties, fishery scientists have sampled the water in a number of places in the Chesapeake Bay to see how many fish were spawned that spring. It’s called the striped bass young-of-the-year index, and there has been a steady decline over the past decade. 2007 saw the lowest number of juveniles since 1990, when the population was just emerging from near-total collapse.
So what is going on? Part of it, we know, has to do with what’s happening in the Chesapeake, where at least 75 percent of the migrating striped bass originate. In 2008, scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science published a study showing that a chronic disease called mycobacteriosis is now at epidemic proportions. It’s been detected in sixty percent of the Chesapeake’s striped bass – and it eventually kills them. The disease began showing up a decade ago, sometimes in the form of skin lesions and often eating away at the fish from within. For humans handling infected fish with an open wound, scientists advise wearing gloves to avoid “fish handler’s disease” that can lead to arthritis-like joint problems. Mycobacteriosis has now spread to the Delaware Bay system, and has been seen in striped bass all along the coast, including here in Massachusetts.
The latest scientific study calls it a “stress disease.” Many of the diseased fish are also emaciated. So what seems to be happening is that the striped bass aren’t getting enough to eat. The Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation recently determined that malnutrition observed in more than 5,000 stripers is a consequence of what’s called “ecological depletion.” Menhaden, a small bony fish that swims in huge schools, is the striped bass’ primary food of choice. But its numbers are way down in the Chesapeake Bay. A single company, Omega Protein out of Reedville, Virginia is netting millions of menhaden annually to be ground up into fish meal and fish oil. A cap on the harvest that was first put in place in 2006 has not proved effective, because menhaden landings since then have averaged 30 percent below the cap. Things have gotten desperate enough for striped bass, bluefish, and other larger predators in the Bay that federal legislation for a complete moratorium on taking menhaden in Chesapeake waters has been introduced.
That probably needs to happen. So does what scientists call “ecosystem management,” taking into account not only pollution and climate change but that big fish need to eat smaller fish to survive. We must do that in Massachusetts, too, where the river herring are being eliminated by the big trawling ships. But when it comes to striped bass, we need to act, and soon, to stave off another crisis. It’s all too similar to the situation in the 1980s, when the only immediate thing to do was to cut back on the fishing pressure.
You will hear from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that the resource is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Yet the allowable catch levels and quotas are still based on a theoretical abundance of fish from the Nineties – and that abundance no longer exists. At the same time, illegal black market fishing is rampant. In February 2009, five watermen in the Chesapeake Bay region pleaded guilty to poaching more than $2 million of striped bass – something like 600,000 fish – and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Until recently, I resisted supporting a ban on commercial sale of wild striped bass in our state. But I have come to the conclusion that this is necessary, for the fish’s sake. And there is a strong precedent for it. Already the majority of coastal states through which the bass migrate have made striped bass a gamefish, including Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC and South Carolina. New York allows no commercial sale because of high levels of PCB’s in the fish’s flesh. Many of these measures, I might add, were done by state legislatures.
By far the biggest commercial harvest of striped bass along the coast occurs off Massachusetts, where half the fish’s population spend their summers. In 2009, Massachusetts commercial striped bass fishermen landed 1,160,453 pounds of fish. But this is not a significant portion of yearly income for any commercial fisherman. Only a very small number of commercial striped bass permit holders rely on sale of the fish to help support their families. The majority of these license holders sell stripers to help support their hobby.
I am in favor of a dedicated fund to buy back commercial striped bass permits on an amortized basis. And there is no reason that should not come from a saltwater license fee on recreational fishermen. We need to do our share, and the measures outlined in this bill – one fish a day instead of two, and only at a fixed minimum or maximum size limit in order to protect the most spawning female fish – would achieve that.
Some people say, what will restaurants and supermarkets do that depend on striped bass to help with income in the summertime? The fact is that farm-raised striped bass already comprise more than 60 percent of the market. The taste, and the price, is comparable to that of wild-caught fish. Fish raised in ponds or other enclosed systems are not tainted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants found at levels high enough in ocean stripers to warrant health advisories against consuming them in many states. The Environmental Defense Fund recommends that people eat only farm-raised stripers, and this legislation would require any that are sold to bear a tag from the grower or distributor.
A century ago, market hunting drove many species of game birds and animals almost to extinction until the practice was outlawed. In recent years, we have seen red drum become a recreational-only species in Florida, and sea trout and redfish in Texas, because there weren’t enough fish to also support a commercial industry. Given all the problems striped bass are facing today, I don’t feel there is any choice but to follow such precedents. We are seeing all the same warning signs that appeared during the near-catastrophic decline of the 1980s. They are signs that weren’t reacted to, until it was almost too late. This time, the coming crash would be worse than before, because there are more fishermen with much more deadly fishing techniques. We cannot afford to wait until it takes intervention from the U.S. Congress and a moratorium to save and then restore the fishery. Massachusetts was a leader in striped bass conservation once. We need to be so again. Thank you.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Browns Mills Well 11 Contaminated with Radium 88Ra
Browns Mills Well Contaminated
Well Closed for safety concerns in Pemberton
By Mark Zimmaro
Burlington County Times
PEMBERTOWN TOWNSHIP – Township officials said they are taking a cautious approach in shutting down the main drinking water well in the Browns Mills section.
Well No. 11 off Trenton Road showed a level of radium that tested above the state Department of Environmental Protection’s standards for safe drinking water.
Though township officials were not required to shut down the well they decided to pull the plug shortly before Christmas as a precaution after the Dec. 16 testing. The well is one of six that were in service in December.
Officials said that the chances of health risks because of the well are minuscule and the demand for water is much less during the winter months.
“We’re taking proactive steps not required of us that we feel are in the best interest of the residents,” Mayor David Patriarca said Wednesday. “We figured we can shut down this well down at this time of year when we don’t really need it and not jeopardize anything, just to be safe.”
Patriarca said residents affected by Well No. 11 will be notified by Jan. 21. The township’s wells are tested annually. This was the first occurrence of radium in Well No. 11, officials said.
It is important for the residents of the water system to note that this is not an immediate risk,” municipal engineer Chris Rehmann said in a report to the Township Council. “However, certain minerals are radioactive and may emit a form of radiation known as alpha radiation. Some people who drink water containing alpha emitters in excess of the maximum contaminant levels over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets drinking water standards and has determined that radium poses health concerns at certain levels of exposure. The EPA determined that the lifetime risk associated with drinking water containing radium affects 1 in 10,000 people.
This means that if 10,000 people were to consume 2 liters of this water per day for 70 years, we would expect to see one additional concern in the 10,000 people exposed,” Rehmann said.
The township is looking into alternatives to compensate for the loss of the water source, such as cleaning Well No. 11 or revisiting wells that were shut down in the past because the township no longer needed their serviceds.
BCT staff writer Mark Zimmaro can be reached at 609-871-8059 or at mzimmaro@phillyBurbs.com
January 8, 2010 12:09 PM
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/january/08/well-closed-for-safety-concerns-in-pemberton.html
Radium (pronounced /ˈreɪdiəm/, RAY-dee-əm) is a radioactive chemical element which has the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. Its appearance is almost pure white, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, turning black. Radium is an alkaline earth metal that is found in trace amounts in uranium ores. It is extremely radioactive. Its most stable isotope, 226Ra, has a half-life of 1602 years and decays into radon gas
The heaviest of the alkaline earth metals, radium is intensely radioactive and resembles barium in its chemical behavior. This metal is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. Radium preparations are remarkable for maintaining themselves at a higher temperature than their surroundings, and for their radiations, which are of three kinds: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays.
When freshly prepared, pure radium metal is brilliant white, but blackens when exposed to air (probably due to nitride formation). Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color), reacts violently with water and oil to form radium hydroxide and is slightly more volatile than barium. The normal phase of radium is a solid.
Radium (Latin radius, ray) was discovered by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898 in pitchblende coming from North Bohemia, in the Czech Republic (area around Jáchymov). While studying pitchblende the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of barium which gave a brilliant green flame color and crimson carmine spectral lines which had never been documented before. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898.[5]
In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride solution by using a mercury cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas.[6]
Radium was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th Century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium. UMHK offered to Marie Curie her first gramme of radium.
Radium is a decay product of uranium and is therefore found in all uranium-bearing ores. (One ton of pitchblende yields one seventh of a gram of radium).[8
Radium is over one million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium. Its decay occurs in at least seven stages; the successive main products have been studied and were called radium emanation or exradio (now identified as radon), radium A (polonium), radium B (lead), radium C (bismuth), etc. Radon is a heavy gas and the later products are solids. These products are themselves radioactive elements, each with an atomic weight a little lower than its predecessor.
Radium loses about 1% of its activity in 25 years, being transformed into elements of lower atomic weight with lead being the final product of disintegration.
The SI unit of radioactivity is the becquerel (Bq), equal to one disintegration per second. The Curie is a non-SI unit defined as that amount of radioactivity which has the same disintegration rate as 1 gram of Ra-226 (3.7 x 1010 disintegrations per second, or 37 GBq).
Handling of radium has been blamed for Marie Curie's premature death.
• Radium is highly radioactive and its decay product, radon gas, is also radioactive. Since radium is chemically similar to calcium, it has the potential to cause great harm by replacing it in bones. Inhalation, injection, ingestion or body exposure to radium can cause cancer and other disorders. Stored radium should be ventilated to prevent accumulation of radon.
• Emitted energy from the decay of radium ionizes gases, affects photographic plates, causes sores on the skin, and produces many other detrimental effects.
Well Closed for safety concerns in Pemberton
By Mark Zimmaro
Burlington County Times
PEMBERTOWN TOWNSHIP – Township officials said they are taking a cautious approach in shutting down the main drinking water well in the Browns Mills section.
Well No. 11 off Trenton Road showed a level of radium that tested above the state Department of Environmental Protection’s standards for safe drinking water.
Though township officials were not required to shut down the well they decided to pull the plug shortly before Christmas as a precaution after the Dec. 16 testing. The well is one of six that were in service in December.
Officials said that the chances of health risks because of the well are minuscule and the demand for water is much less during the winter months.
“We’re taking proactive steps not required of us that we feel are in the best interest of the residents,” Mayor David Patriarca said Wednesday. “We figured we can shut down this well down at this time of year when we don’t really need it and not jeopardize anything, just to be safe.”
Patriarca said residents affected by Well No. 11 will be notified by Jan. 21. The township’s wells are tested annually. This was the first occurrence of radium in Well No. 11, officials said.
It is important for the residents of the water system to note that this is not an immediate risk,” municipal engineer Chris Rehmann said in a report to the Township Council. “However, certain minerals are radioactive and may emit a form of radiation known as alpha radiation. Some people who drink water containing alpha emitters in excess of the maximum contaminant levels over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets drinking water standards and has determined that radium poses health concerns at certain levels of exposure. The EPA determined that the lifetime risk associated with drinking water containing radium affects 1 in 10,000 people.
This means that if 10,000 people were to consume 2 liters of this water per day for 70 years, we would expect to see one additional concern in the 10,000 people exposed,” Rehmann said.
The township is looking into alternatives to compensate for the loss of the water source, such as cleaning Well No. 11 or revisiting wells that were shut down in the past because the township no longer needed their serviceds.
BCT staff writer Mark Zimmaro can be reached at 609-871-8059 or at mzimmaro@phillyBurbs.com
January 8, 2010 12:09 PM
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/january/08/well-closed-for-safety-concerns-in-pemberton.html
Radium (pronounced /ˈreɪdiəm/, RAY-dee-əm) is a radioactive chemical element which has the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. Its appearance is almost pure white, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, turning black. Radium is an alkaline earth metal that is found in trace amounts in uranium ores. It is extremely radioactive. Its most stable isotope, 226Ra, has a half-life of 1602 years and decays into radon gas
The heaviest of the alkaline earth metals, radium is intensely radioactive and resembles barium in its chemical behavior. This metal is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. Radium preparations are remarkable for maintaining themselves at a higher temperature than their surroundings, and for their radiations, which are of three kinds: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays.
When freshly prepared, pure radium metal is brilliant white, but blackens when exposed to air (probably due to nitride formation). Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color), reacts violently with water and oil to form radium hydroxide and is slightly more volatile than barium. The normal phase of radium is a solid.
Radium (Latin radius, ray) was discovered by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898 in pitchblende coming from North Bohemia, in the Czech Republic (area around Jáchymov). While studying pitchblende the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of barium which gave a brilliant green flame color and crimson carmine spectral lines which had never been documented before. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898.[5]
In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride solution by using a mercury cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas.[6]
Radium was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th Century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium. UMHK offered to Marie Curie her first gramme of radium.
Radium is a decay product of uranium and is therefore found in all uranium-bearing ores. (One ton of pitchblende yields one seventh of a gram of radium).[8
Radium is over one million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium. Its decay occurs in at least seven stages; the successive main products have been studied and were called radium emanation or exradio (now identified as radon), radium A (polonium), radium B (lead), radium C (bismuth), etc. Radon is a heavy gas and the later products are solids. These products are themselves radioactive elements, each with an atomic weight a little lower than its predecessor.
Radium loses about 1% of its activity in 25 years, being transformed into elements of lower atomic weight with lead being the final product of disintegration.
The SI unit of radioactivity is the becquerel (Bq), equal to one disintegration per second. The Curie is a non-SI unit defined as that amount of radioactivity which has the same disintegration rate as 1 gram of Ra-226 (3.7 x 1010 disintegrations per second, or 37 GBq).
Handling of radium has been blamed for Marie Curie's premature death.
• Radium is highly radioactive and its decay product, radon gas, is also radioactive. Since radium is chemically similar to calcium, it has the potential to cause great harm by replacing it in bones. Inhalation, injection, ingestion or body exposure to radium can cause cancer and other disorders. Stored radium should be ventilated to prevent accumulation of radon.
• Emitted energy from the decay of radium ionizes gases, affects photographic plates, causes sores on the skin, and produces many other detrimental effects.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Barnsey & Friend
Robert A. Barnes, 64
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. Robert A. "Barnesy" "Caveman" Barnes, 64, of this community and Ocean City (NJ) died Aug 7 in the veterans' home in Grand Junction, Colo. He was born in Somers Point, NJ.
Mr. Barnes attended Ocean City High School, served in the U.S. Air Force (1956-58) and worked as a carpenter, craftsman, boat builder and in other trades. He spent most of his time fishing, particularly in the Great Egg Harbor and in the Florida Keys and Colorado.
He wrote an, as yet unpublished manuscript "Into the Slime: The Art of Fishing."
Mr. Barnes was a member of the Praise Tabernacle Church in Egg Harbor Township and Sonlight Foursquare Gospel Church in Glenwood Springs, Colo.
Memorial services will be held at noon Sunday, Oct. 13 on the 12th Street pavilion on the bay in Ocean City and at 1 p.m. at the Tight End Fishing Club at Gregory's Restaurant in Somers Point.
Burrial was in Western Veterans' Memorial Cemetery in Grand Junction, Colo. Arrangments by Rifle Funeral Home in Rifle, Colorado.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)