OFFICIALS ORDER RAPID CLEANUP OF PLANE GAUGES RADIATION IS 100 TIMES NORMAL.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Federal officials have launched a $7 million emergency cleanup of radioactive contamination at a North Hollywood warehouse, removing more than 1 million vintage airplane gauges that were painted with radium to illuminate them during night flights.

Tests conducted in May show radiation levels inside the warehouse at 10800 Burbank Blvd. - where boxes of gauges are crammed into a maze of 12-foot-high shelves - are 100 times greater than background for the area. Radiation in the outdoor storage yard is about 10 times greater.

``We found that the material that's at the site, especially that in the yard, was posing a hazard to human health and environment at the sidewalk,'' said Pete Guria, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's emergency response section for the Western region.

Though environmental regulators have known about the radioactive gauges at Preservation Aviation since the 1990s, EPA staffers were surprised by the high readings and immediately began moving the boxes of radioactive gauges away from the fence line to lower the levels near the sidewalk. They also installed around-the-clock security.

The EPA will begin removing the hot instruments for disposal at a radioactive waste dump in mid-July at an estimated cost of $7 million. Officials hold out little hope of recouping any of the cost from the company or landowner.

Aviation historians oppose that plan, saying the gauges and dials are vital to maintaining the thousands of World War II planes still in operation.

``That's the stock of literally thousands of planes in the world. It's not something that should be taken lightly and thrown away,'' said Tom Garcia, a retired airplane mechanic and volunteer with the Commemorative Air Force, which aims to preserve World War II-era planes.

EPA officials hope to have an aviation historian or expert from the Smithsonian Institution on hand to help survey the gauges.

But environmental regulators say it will be expensive and time-consuming to sort through gauges, and they don't want the radioactive instruments simply stockpiled someplace else.

``They can get in people's hands that don't know what they have and they can hurt themselves,'' Guria said.

Radium is a naturally occurring radioactive metal found at low levels in rocks, soil, water, plants and even animals. Once considered a miracle ingredient and used in toothpastes, hair tonics and medicines, radium and its byproducts are now know to cause cancer.

Purified radium glows in the dark and was commonly used to illuminate markings on clock faces and gauges. Intact radium gauges or watches don't pose a problem. But cracked, they can release particles or dust, which if inhaled can cause cancer over the long term.

Since the 1950s, the small red brick warehouse on Burbank Boulevard has housed a growing inventory of aircraft parts. Originally called Pen Air Parts, the owner, Alec Faulks, was a dealer in government surplus aircraft instruments.

Preservation Aviation owner Jeffrey Pearson bought the inventory in 1996 but never got around to getting a complete accounting of the gadgets stored floor to ceiling.

Most of the instruments were from the World War II era, said Charles Quilter II, a friend and aviation historian who spoke on behalf of Pearson. Quilter estimates about 6 percent of the pieces in the warehouse contain radium.

The California Department of Health Services found out about Preservation Aviation's cache in the 1990s after a gauge sold by the business triggered a radioactivity monitor at a metal scrap yard.

Investigators traced the gauge back to the North Hollywood company and discovered radiation was twice the health and safety limit. Radon, which is formed from decaying radium, was found at 25 times the limit.

The state estimated between 30,000 and 300,000 radium gauges in the warehouse and figured 10 percent were broken and contaminated. However, the EPA puts the number of gauges at 1 million.

The state prohibited anyone from entering the warehouse and ordered Preservation Aviation to get rid of the broken gauges and decontaminate the building. Cleanup efforts were slow, and frustrated county officials this year asked the EPA to get involved.

Quilter said the company's cleanup plans were dismissed by the state. Pearson is applying for a license to keep his radium instruments.

``He wants to get his work going again,'' Quilter said. ``His main goal is to get out the 95 percent of the stuff that doesn't have radium in it.'' Most of the instruments came from U.S. military planes, and state regulators had hoped the Department of Defense would clean up the property. However, the military declined.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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