Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
The West Chicago thorium mill that gave its waste away as fill
West Chicago, Illinois
Ryan Griffis from Urbana, Illinois, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Lindsay Light and Chemical started leaching thorium, radium and uranium out of monazite sand here in 1932, making gas lantern mantles and later selling to the federal atomic programme, and the plant ran under later owners including Kerr-McGee until 1973. The sandy mill tailings were offered free for years as landscaping and low ground fill, so the waste ended up in yards and parks all over town. By 1991 the factory, Reed Keppler Park, Kress Creek, the sewage treatment plant and 676 residential properties were Superfund sites. The last railcar of contaminated soil left for a disposal site in Utah in 2015.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: historic site
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