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Comment by aetimmes | Hacker News Reader

Another story on the topic: https://www.nj.com/news/2022/04/a-mystery-in-colonia.html

Including an anecdote from finding a radioactive rock in the school in 1999:

"But when the teacher moved to an unremarkable, slate-gray, grapefruit-sized rock, the Geiger counter erupted like an alarm clock, sending the tiny gauge on the device to whiz to the highest reading levels, Gallo said."

(My hometown, but did not attend the high school, AMA)

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https://apnews.com/article/f10ba58472bcc0e1ababb5fc8ad8d321

What was supposed to be a simple classroom demonstration of a Geiger counter turned into a school-closing panic when the sensitive radiation detector set up a loud clamor over a rock.
Colonia High School was evacuated and a hazardous materials team clad in lead aprons borrowed from a dentist secured the rock in a lead-lined box.
But scientists said Wednesday that the grapefruit-sized chunk of stone was never any threat.

The radiation danger was no worse than sunlight, said William Csaszar, a radiation physicist for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Yeah. Alpha and beta radiation is normally harmless unless it's inside your body. Uranium is far more hazardous as a toxic metal than as a radioactive material. Yes--stay away from anyplace depleted uranium rounds were used or depleted uranium armor was hit. Stay away for chemical reasons, not nuclear ones.

Did you know anyone who developed cancer from your town? Maybe you should get screened regularly as well?

Both of my parents have had cancer, but neither were the rare types seemingly caused by CHS (melanoma and kidney cancer). Certainly worth keeping an eye on, though.

I'm sorry to hear that and hope that your parents and you're healthy from here on out. I do wonder if the incidence of cancer in your area could be compared to a similar community in a sort of natural experiment to see if people in your home town were more likely to contract cancer than the other community.

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