By DEVLIN BARRETT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Staten Island park where high levels of radium were discovered last year poses no public health risk, officials said Friday, though a congressman is asking for the full list of 79 other radiological "hot spots" around the city.
National Park Service and Environmental Protection Agency officials met with Staten Island's Rep. Vito Fossella a day after a government report revealed that an aerial survey conducted by anti-terror experts had detected radium at Great Kills Park.
The survey was conducted in August 2005 at the request of the NYPD to create a map of low-intensity sources of radioactivity. A section of soil at the park "was contaminated by large quantities of radium," according to a report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
The radium apparently came from old material dumped there when the site was still a landfill.
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