Radioactive Schenectady garbage truck held, found not hazardous

PHOTOGRAPHER: Peter R. Barber

Schenectady firefighter/paramedic Lt. Brian Heaney removes barrier tape from a section of parking lot on Weaver Street across from the Transfer Site after the garbage truck at left had high levels of radiation Tuesday, February 24, 2015.

A garbage truck was quarantined at the city of Schenectady’s waste transfer station on Weaver Street on Tuesday for high levels of radiation.

The Schenectady Fire Department were called around 11 a.m. after the truck tripped a Geiger counter at the station, which measures radiation. Officials with the state Department of Environmental Conservation found the truck was carrying Isotope 131, which is commonly used in cancer treatments.

“It was very well within the normal limits of non-regulated medical waste,” said Assistant Fire Chief Michael Gillespie. “DEC’s radiation people have a history of dealing with these things and run into this on a fairly regular basis.”

DEC officials took readings of garbage in the truck and determined the presence of the isotope and found it to be non-hazardous, Gillespie said. The contents of the truck did not have to be searched.

“If the readings were high enough, we would have taken it to an isolated location, preferably inside a building, dumped the contents and gone through it,” Gillespie said. “But the readings were nowhere near that point.”

The truck was driving to the waste transfer station from Scotia to unload. Gillespie said after the DEC investigation, the garbage was disposed of as normal.

Gillespie said the last time the Geiger counter went off at the Schenectady station was nearly three years ago. He stressed that the metering at the station was working properly at the time, and no one was ever in any danger.