EPA Sets $40 Million Radioactive Waste Cleanup for New York City Site

Radioactive waste in buildings, soil, and sewers at a former New York City factory site will be cleaned up at an estimated cost of $39.9 million, the Environmental Protection Agency said.

The Superfund site of the defunct Wolff-Alport Chemical Co., located in the Ridgewood section near the border between the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn, was contaminated with radioactive thorium from processing of imported monazite sand to extract rare-earth metals, the agency said in announcing the plan Sept. 27.

The company stopped dumping thorium wastes on the property and into sewers in 1947, on orders from ...