Three five-gallon buckets of uranium ore were stored in the museum building between 2000 and 2018 close enough to exhibits that visitors may have been exposed to hazardous levels of radiation. The radiation was discovered when a visitor with a Geiger counter came in 2018.
They really need to test the WORKERS who were exposed to the museum building for extended periods of time, including summer hires more than just the tourists. The tourists were there and then left. The workers returned for repeated exposures of extended time periods. YIKES!
What a crazy story. And to think that someone dumped the buckets into an abandoned mine shaft and then returned the empty (still radioactive) buckets back to the museum! How incredibly irresponsible. I’m glad that this whistle blower sent out a mass email when he realized his warnings weren’t being listened to.
I’ve been to the Grand Canyon several times in those years but never to that museum. It’s in GC village, but not right on the rim like El Tovar, the Geology Museum, those old studios that perch right on the edge. It was a place that school groups were sometimes brought to.
^Thanks for the explanation of the museum’s location. It helps assure me that I never visited it.
I saw this story yesterday - I emailed it to my D (who lives in London) and we’re pretty sure we were in this building. A few years ago on a family trip we arranged for a private viewing of some artifacts of a family member, who was a park ranger at the Grand Canyon.
Typical governmental incompetence.