Science: Valley of Strontium 90

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The Public Health Service reported last week some disturbing byproducts of the Atomic Age. For a year its experts studied the Animas River in Colorado and New Mexico, whose water is used for the homes of 30,000 people. Below the Durango, Colo. uranium refinery of the Vanadium Corp. of America, the water was loaded with radium from the plant's wastes. Some samples were 160% above the maximum level officially considered safe for health. Vanadium Corp. has agreed to do something at once.

While poking around the Animas Valley, Health Service scientists came across a second, even more alarming danger. Vegetables grown by irrigation contained not only 'radium (from the water), but also surprising amounts of strontium 90, which could have come only from nuclear-test fallout. Peas ranged as high as 250 micromicrocuries per kilogram (2.2 lbs.); cabbages went up to 315 micromicrocuries. One sample of lettuce had 970 micromicrocuries. The reading was twelve times the maximum permissible level set by the Atomic Energy Commission.