Radium At Sunshine Home: Accusation, Defense, Data

CHAPPAQUA, NY — A group of homeowners opposed to the expansion of a residential children's hospital on the Ossining-New Castle border held a press conference Tuesday to accuse the hospital of serving its patients radium-contaminated water. Officials for Sunshine Children's Home denied the allegations. The Westchester County Health Department provided data to Patch about radium levels in the hospital's water.

"Sunshine is putting pediatric patients and staff at the facility at risk of exposure to radium levels that far exceed Environmental Protection Agency legal limits, despite prior assurances by Sunshine’s corporate owners that a radium contaminated well would remain shut down," the Greater Teatown Defense Alliance said in a statement after the press conference.

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And to their continued calls for New Castle officials to reject the hospital's expansion plan, they added a call for the entire facility to be relocated out of their neighborhood.

“The latest revelation that Sunshine is relying on radium-contaminated water to serve its 54-bed facility while it tries to find enough water for 122 beds is one of many reasons why the facility should be relocated to a place where the children can be safe," said former town board candidate and Chappaqua attorney Gail Markels in the statement. "We are asking the Town, the County, the State & Sunshine to work together to find a suitable location & not one that invites a catastrophe.”

Radium is found naturally in rocks and in soil. A study published earlier in January by the Environmental Working Group said 170 people in the United States are drinking radioactive tap water. The EWG routinely "overstates the health risk of chemicals," according to ActivistFacts.com.

The Westchester County Health Department provided this information to Patch when asked about drinking water at the facility:

Recent water samples taken at the Sunshine Children’s Home during the fourth quarter of 2017 had no detectible Radium 226 or Radium 228.

The EPA guidelines allow up to 5.49 pCi/l (picocuries per liter), calculated as an annual running average of four consecutive quarterly samples.

Two years ago, during the fourth quarter of 2015, this standard was exceeded for combined Radium 226 and Radium 228. The 2015 exceedance was 5.70 picocuries per liter (pc/l).

All eight quarterly results taken in the two years since then have met EPA standards for radium and other radiological material.

The Greater Teatown Defense Alliance is comprised of member organizations throughout Ossining, New Castle and Cortlandt concerned that the Greater Teatown area’s natural resources are being destroyed through over-commercialization and non-enforcement of Town regulations.

GTDA FOILed for records and hired a consultant. They said the records showed:

Sunshine Children’s Home has three water wells onsite that provide its only source of water. While radium has been detected in all three wells, Sunshine’s highest producing well (Well #3) is also its most contaminated, with radium levels detected as high as 15.63 pCi/L (November 2016). Sunshine has indicated its intent to blend water from multiple wells in an effort to dilute their onsite radium contamination. Previous efforts by Sunshine to blend its water resulted in a Notice of Violation issued to Sunshine by the Westchester County Department of Health (WCDOH) in February 2016.

In response to the Notice of Violation, Sunshine told the Town of New Castle that it would keep Well #3 out of service until a radium treatment system had been installed and approved by Westchester County Department of Health (WCDOH) and that Well #3 would remain physically disconnected from its water system. The recent FOIL documents from WCDOH reveal that Sunshine has put its highly contaminated Well #3 back into service with no treatment system in place, and with less water to dilute the contamination than in 2016.

"Sunshine’s willingness to subject its pediatric patients and staff to radium contamination raises the stakes and shows how far Sunshine is willing to push to expand its for-profit medical facility," GTDA officials said in their press release.

Sunshine is owned by a man whose two children are residents at the facility. Hospital officials issued this statement after the press conference:

As we move to a final decision on the expansion of our 5-star facility for medically-fragile children, attacks from a few vocal neighbors who oppose our project are becoming more extreme and misleading. The water supply at the Sunshine Children's Home is public and is therefore closely monitored by the Westchester County Department of Health. Recently, we temporarily shut down one of our supply wells to allow for some rehabilitation and modernization needed to continue to serve the existing facility. As a precautionary measure, and in consultation with the Westchester County Department of Health, we put an interim plan in place to use bottled water for all consumption until the well is back in service. The safety of our children and our staff is paramount to us. Clearly, our opponents have no interest in obtaining the facts and simply seek to spread rumors and misinformation.

From the Westchester County Health Department:

Combined Radium-226 and Radium-228 Running Average Results:

• 4thQ 2014: 3.60 pCi/l
• 1st Q 2015: 4.71
• 2nd Q 2015: 5.19
• 3rd Q 2015: 4.61
• 4th Q 2015: 5.70
• 1st Q 2016: 3.87
• 2nd Q 2016: 2.39
• 3rd Q 2016: 1.63
• 4th Q 2016: 1.40
• 1st Q 2017: 1.40
• 2nd Q 2017: 1.40
• 3rd Q 2017: 1.13
• 4th Q 2017: 0.00

According to the press release, Attorney Adam Stolorow of Sive, Paget & Riesel said at the press conference today, “Radium is a radioactive material and a dangerous carcinogen. It causes lung cancer. It causes bone cancer. It is dangerous to drink and dangerous to inhale. It should not be in any children’s drinking water. The federal drinking water goal for radium is zero, yet all three wells on Sunshine’s property contain some level of radium, one of which has radium levels over three times the legal limit. If I was told that radium at these levels was in my water at home I would not drink it, cook with it or bath my children with it.”

SEE ALSO:

• Ossining Neighbors Oppose Sunshine Home's Expansion Plan
• Sunshine Children's Home & Rehab Center's Vital Plan for Expansion
• Foes Of Children's Home Expansion Seek Bat Delay
  

Image/ Sunshine Children's Home

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