Ecological Anxiety: Is There Radiation Where the Children Play?
The note from the state representative was scary.
Radioactive Contamination at Magnuson Park
Adjacent to “Arena Sports” Building 27
What are the Risks?
What are the Cleanup Plans?
Why Wasn’t The Public Informed Earlier?
The park is a place where thousands of children play – where my own children play. Nearly every night, the soccer fields are lit up with youth teams or adult teams playing match after match. And Arena Sports itself is host to birthday parties every weekend and a favorite spot for children to frolic on the many inflatable houses and slides.
My attempt to figure out exactly what is going on with radiation in a beloved public park mirrors the frustration and confusion that people feel every day when confronted with health threats in their own neighborhoods. So far, it has been exactly like what Nathanael Johnson describes in his book “All Natural.” Over a series of posts, I will try to document how I went about attempting to figure out whether the threat of dangerous radiation levels was real and what – if anything – regular citizens could do about it.
I started thinking like a reporter. I’ll do a little research. I’ll jot down a few key questions. I’ll attend the meeting being called by Rep. Gerry Pollet.
When is it? 30 days out? A couple of weeks?
The postcard said: May 29. That’s tomorrow!
The date alone made my anxiety level shoot up by a factor of 10. Then I opened my email. A neighbor had sent me the same thing, urging me and many others to, “Please read, attend, write, speak, and let your voices be heard.”
So I did. I dropped the rather large pile of work I had stacked up for the evening, and I went to The Mountaineers climbing club – we drive by it every time we go to the bouncy houses. I was expecting a meeting room filled with chairs and an official looking panel of serious looking people at the front. Instead, I was greeted by a bunch of signs for various recreational groups and one that said, “US Navy Open House.” I walked the perimeter of the building – ran into some people who were just as confused - and finally decided the Navy Open House must be code for Really Scary Radioactive Waste Where Your Children Play.
Already, I was frustrated.
When I walked in, I didn’t see chairs or a panel. I saw a circle of posters with historical pictures from the park’s past. It was a Navy base until 1995. Then I picked up a fact sheet that said, “Time Critical Removal Action Former Naval Station Puget Sound at Sand Point, Seattle, Washington.”
I had barely started to read it, though, when I heard an argument breaking out behind the posters in another part of the room. I walked over and found a crowd of people standing around two men trying to answer a volley of questions. One was Pollet. The other, it turns out, was Sean Hughes, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Navy.
Both tried their best to be clear. But I left the meeting feeling even more confused than when I entered the room. I’ll write more about my hunt for answers in the next post.
Image by DrBjorn viaFlickr
Ecological Anxiety: Radiation Fears Stoked by History, Politics, and Propaganda
Ecological Anxiety: How Far Does Seattle Park's Radiation Contamination Reach?
Ecological Anxiety: How Much Radiation is Too Much?
Ecological Anxiety: Radiation Can Harm Drip by Drip Or With One Big Blast