Boston Chemical Data Corp

05/18/2024

Our latest research article is available free online for the next 30 days. J. Applied radiation and Isotopes has peer-reviewed and published our radiation biology research paper, "Absorbed dose rates and biological consequences of discrete alpha-emitting particles embedded in tissue", by M. Kaltofen & P. Plato.

The download link (which we encourage you to freely share) is at:

This study calculates dose rate in Gy y-1 for individual dust, soil, and sediment particles that contain significant amounts of alpha-emitting uranium…

10/19/2021

WIldfire and radiation transport - a look at the 2018 Woolsey fire at .

In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire burned north of Los Angeles, CA, USA, potentially remobilizing radioactive contaminants at the former Santa Susana …

10/19/2021

Our latest paper is out, and available without charge until Nov. 14, 2021. We take a look at radiation released by the 2018 Woolsey Wildfire outside of Los Angeles. The wildfire burned parts of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, site of America's earliest nuclear fuel meltdown accident. https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1dtcn,62~nX~Cb

09/16/2021

Congrats to Marco Kaltofen (WPI-2015) and Dan Borelli (Harvard) for their new Unfriending the atom project. (unfriendingtheatom.com)

11/25/2020

New watchdog report documents fires, violations at company treating Hanford wastes

In May 2019, workers at the Perma-Fix Northwest plant pulled a hunk of radioactive waste from a powerful kiln heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to ensconce the material in glass for eventual burial.

The workers let it cool — but not long enough — before setting it on a pallet. The residual heat caused the wood to burn. A crew from the plant sprayed chemicals on the fire before Richland firefighters arrived to finish that job.

A Washington Department of Ecology inspector in a report noted that a fire alarm system was not operating that month and that the incident “could have been catastrophic.”

This was one of two fires at Perma-Fix in 2019 that were not publicly disclosed by the company or state regulators. It offers an unsettling example of how things can go wrong at the private facility that treats radioactive and hazardous materials trucked in from Hanford, the highly polluted federal site which produced plutonium for nuclear bombs, as well as waste from elsewhere in the U.S. and other countries.

Read the full article here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/new-watchdog-report-documents-fires-violations-at-company-treating-hanford-wastes/

Visit hanfordchallenge.org/pfnw for our press release and quick facts.

11/25/2020

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the home for much of our Cold War high-level nuclear wastes. US DOE plans some house cleaning - but can a near-surface landfill really be the national repository we've been looking for?

11/24/2020

Our latest paper on radiation in Japan and implications for Olympics/Paralympics visitors and athletes is available from J. Environmental Engineering Science. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ees.2020.0139

08/14/2020

Our published letter to J. Inhal. Tox. supports EPA's science-based risk standard for chloroprene, and finds no evidence for allowing more of this cancer-causing compound into the air in Louisiana. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QHJW5DJBDJIQWSZAG6Y7/full?target=10.1080%2F08958378.2020.1806960&

01/21/2020

BCD in the news.

Oil-and-gas wells produce nearly a trillion gallons of toxic waste a year. An investigation shows how it could be making workers sick and contaminating communities across America

01/10/2020

Our lab at WPI has yet to find a home where the house dust is non detect for PFAS chemicals. Designating these long-lived chemicals as hazardous would be reasonable progress towards a safer indoor environment.

“247-159: House passed legislation requiring EPA to designate PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances within one year. 24 Republicans voted Yes. Bill opposed by White House now heads to Senate. https://t.co/C9nwmAcBRB”

01/09/2020

Some simple rules for myself and my fellow P*s on building a productive and healthy laboratory team.

12/26/2019

“The anti-science movement is a very scary development, and should not be underestimated,” he says. “By attacking very specific, little-known but truly fundamental scientific underpinnings of how we regulate and protect the environment, the entire edifice of environmental protection is under threat. This is not the work of ignorance, but a carefully targeted effort to dismantle environmental protections. We, as scientists, need to ask ourselves how we plan to maintain our relevance in the face of this kind of focused opposition.”

They say it’s the little things that matter most, and Marco Kaltofen couldn’t agree more. The civil engineer “fingerprints” nuclear, chemical, and petroleum contamination via field sampling and investigations in the United States and internationally. He gets called to all the hot spots, like...