Sand Trap Contaminated Sane Being Transported From Kuwait To Be Dumped In Idaho, U.S.A. — Longshore Workers Unload DU, Protest Iraq War

LONGVIEW, Wash. Sand. It’s relatively harmless, charming, and useful, right?

You can make glass cups and windows out of it, and if need be, kick it into eyes of a beach bully.

When 6,700 tons of sand is unloaded from ships into the United States, it wouldn’t necessarily cause one a second look.

“The United States the world’s most prosperous nation importing sand? What, our shorelines eroding that fast? Well, it better be diamond-studded dirt,” a passing-glancer might quip.

But when it is 6,700 tons of sand contaminated with lead and depleted uranium, it requires another set of looks entirely.

This deadly sand, though contained in hazardous waste receptacles, is just what longshore workers unloaded in the Port of Longview, Washington last week.

The sand became contaminated with DU after a 1991 fire in Camp Doha, a U.S. Army base in Kuwait, during the first Gulf War, the report said. The sand entered the country aboard the BBC Alabama on 306 containers last week.

It took longshore workers two shifts on a Sunday, April 27, to unload the containers, half of which were hoisted onto 76 rail cars bound for a licensed dumpsite in Grand View, Idaho. Once the trains return, the remaining sand will then be moved to the same site.

Chad Hyslop, spokesman for the disposal company American Ecology, told DailyNews.com that it would take two weeks to a month to transport the sand.

Hyslop, according to the report, assured that the radioactivity of the uranium in the sand was of safe levels, about 10 parts per trillion or at most 10 times higher than uranium concentrations in concrete.

While at sea, the Army detected four times as much lead in the sand as the EPA’s hazardous materials standard signals. As a result, the shipment was delayed from entering the port for three days. Hyslop equated the lead contamination with battery acid and small arms ammunition.

The longshoremen who unloaded the materials in sealed containers donned standard safety gear, but respirators were not worn, though they were provided, Hyslop told DailyNews.com.

Mike Wilcox, vice president of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union local 21, reportedly said that his local was worried more about the safety of the community than the actual unloading the cargo.

Agents with the state Department of Health and U.S. Customs inspected the cargo for radiation levels, sand spills, and other potential problems, Hyslop reportedly said.

America Ecology and the Local 21 failed to grant the Iconoclast’s requests for interviews.

It’s not the first voyage of sand from Camp Doha disposed of by American Ecology; the last shipment was in 2005.

The true cost of the clean-up has yet to be disclosed publicly, though early reports indicate that the Kuwait government is flipping the bill.

The Snake River Alliance, an anti-nuclear watchdog group in Idaho, is doing as much research as possible on the disposal of the contaminated sand, according to a spokesperson.

“We’re really concerned about it because depleted uranium is a toxic heavy metal and a radioactive subs