“Half a mile away, in Orange, is the abandoned factory where the U.S. Radium Corporation made luminous watch dials from 1915 to 1926. At the time, nobody knew radium was dangerous; it was only after women who worked at the factory began getting sick and dying of cancer that the Essex County medical examiner, Dr. Harrison A. Martland, spotted the connection.
By that time, soil tainted with radioactive tailings from the factory had been used to fill in low-lying areas of Essex County -- a total of 210 acres in Glen Ridge, Montclair and West Orange. It was not until 1981 that the E.P.A. -- as part of a national initiative -- conducted an aerial survey of the 12 square miles around the U.S. Radium plant. Ground surveys over the next two years confirmed the presence of dangerous gamma radiation, and the problem was first revealed publicly at the end of 1983.”