[CPEO-MEF] FUDS, ASBESTOS: Gallops Island (MA)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Gallops Island: Paradise lost

By Lawrence Harmon
Boston Globe Columnist
August 15, 2010

THE KEEP-OUT sign on the dock at Gallops Island evokes the late 19th 
century, when new immigrants suspected of harboring infectious diseases 
were quarantined on the 23-acre island in Boston Harbor. But it’s not 
the fear of cholera or small pox that spooks visitors today. It’s 
friable asbestos that prevents the public from stepping foot on the island.

Gallops is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, 
an urban archipelago of 34 islands scattered across 50 square miles of 
Boston Harbor. Gallops has been closed to the public since 2000, when 
state environmental officials determined that transite — a combination 
of asbestos and cement formerly used for fireproofing building 
materials— was present on parts of the island that had hosted WW II-era 
military training facilities. In the 1950s, work crews demolished the 
buildings and buried the debris. But a half-century later, the ground 
cover has eroded, exposing the kinds of materials linked to lung disease.


...

For the entire column, see
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/15/gallops_island_paradise_lost/

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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