DENVER—A five-year project to remove low-level radioactive radium from the streets of Denver is complete, health officials said Wednesday.
The city had monitored the material—used in road building during the 1920s—under several modern streets since the Environmental Protection Agency declared the areas a Superfund site in the 1970s. In 2002, Denver began a project to dig under streets and haul the material away.
Disposal of the material spurred Adams County to sue the state in a fight to keep the radium-tainted material out of a waste facility near Last Chance. While the legal wrangling continues, Denver resumed delivering the waste to Clean Harbors’ Deer Trail facility at Last Chance in mid 2007.
Denver processed the naturally occurring radium for medical purposes and to support wartime efforts until the 1920s. The material was then used as part of the aggregate in road building in some streets around the city such as Cheeseman Park area.
