500 truckloads of sand - how to steal a beach

[BlackCat]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7678379.stm

Jamaica puzzled by theft of beach
By Nick Davis
BBC News, Ocho Rios, Jamaica

People on a beach in Jamaica (file)
A good beach is seen as a valuable asset to hotels in Jamaica

Police in Jamaica are investigating the suspected theft of hundreds of tons of sand from a beach on the island's north coast.

It was discovered in July that 500 truck-loads had been removed outside a planned resort at Coral Spring beach.

Detectives say people in the tourism sector could be suspects, because a good beach is seen as a valuable asset to hotels on the Caribbean island.

But a lack of arrests made since July have led to criticism of the police.

'Complex investigation'

The beach at Coral Springs, in Jamaica's northern parish of Trelawny, was 400 metres (1,300ft) of white sand. The 0.5-hectare strand was to form part a resort complex costing US$108m, but the theft of its most important feature has led to its developers putting their plans on hold.

Illegal sand mining is a problem in Jamaica; the tradition of people building their own homes here means there is a huge demand for the construction material. However, the large volume and the type of sand taken made suspicion point towards the hotel industry.


There is some suspicion that some police were in collusion with the movers of the sand
Mark Shields
Deputy Commissioner of Police

The disappearance was deemed so important that the Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, also took an interest in the theft and ordered a report into how 500 truckloads of sand was stolen, transported and presumably sold.

Three months on, and with no arrests or charges in the case, the main opposition People's National Party have suggested that some people now think there has been a cover up.

But the deputy commissioner for crime at the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Mark Shields, insisted this was not an open-and-shut case.

"It's a very complex investigation because it involves so many aspects," he told the BBC.

"You've got the receivers of the stolen sand, or what we believe to be the sand. The trucks themselves, the organisers and, of course, there is some suspicion that some police were in collusion with the movers of the sand."

Police said they were carrying out forensic tests on beaches along the coast to see if any of it matches the stolen sand.

[SlowwHand]

No one noticed 500 truckloads of sand being removed.
I guess that makes the average citizen feel real secure.
Suspect tourists? I don't know that they'll solve this case.

[DaShi]

*ahem*

[SlowwHand]

You did it?

[Zkribbler]

Where the heck do you hide 500 truckloads of sand??

[SlowwHand]

On a beach?

[Dinner]

Beaches are expensive. San Diego recently spent several million to add beach sand because all the local rivers have been dammed to make reservoirs. The result is sand isn't making it to beaches so people have to put it there.

They're also using barges to build ideal beaches for surfing so that the waves break just right. To bad all that sand washes away in 3-6 months.

[DaShi]

See! I was right about the Iraq War. It was all about the sand.

[BeBMan]

The war on sand will decide teh future of humanity

[Aeson]

500 truckloads of pristine sand? That's small potatoes...

http://www.newwest.net/city/article/army_shipping_contaminated_kuwait_sand_to_idaho_landfill1/C108/L108/

Army Shipping Contaminated Kuwait Sand to Idaho Landfill

By Jill Kuraitis, 4-30-08

The U.S. Army is shipping 6,700 tons of contaminated sand to Idaho from Kuwait. It will arrive at American Ecology in Grandview, Idaho, sometime in May.

Grandview, population 470, is 42 miles south of Boise in Owyhee County.

The sand is from Camp Doha in Kuwait, a former Army warehouse complex used by Army Forces Central Command. The sand absorbed depleted uranium when some spent ammunition was caught in a fire (addition May 1:during the first Gulf War.)

It’s also contaminated with hazardous levels of lead, according to the two military guys who told me the story, whose branch and names won’t be used for obvious reasons. However, it’s no secret, since the story had already been written by Erik Olson in the Longview, Washington Daily News.

Chad Hyslop, spokesperson for American Ecology, did not return New West’s phone calls, but he told Olson that all the sand will be at the disposal site in Grandview sometime in May.

It will take 76 rail cars to run half the sand to Idaho, and then a second trip will be required for the rest. 152 of the smallest size rail cars would build a four-story structure about the size of half a football field.

Andrea Shipley, the executive director of the Snake River Alliance, an Idaho-based grassroots group with a mission to watchdog the energy industry and energy-related government departments, doesn’t like the idea of the sand coming to Idaho. She told New West that “this is a major concern. Depleted uranium is both a toxic heavy metal and a radioactive substance creating health risks that may be far more varied than is recognized in federal regulations today. Safe and responsible clean-up is critical to safeguard the health of Idahoans and our environment.”

The lead contamination, which the Army discovered before the ship carrying the sand to the Port of Longview arrived there, was nearly four times higher than the EPA standard for designating it “hazardous.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, even very low levels of exposure to lead in children can cause learning disabilities, and may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, strokes or heart attacks. Lead is also associated with impaired visual and motor function, growth abnormality, neurological and organ damage, hearing loss, hypertension and reproductive complications.

Whether or not humans might be exposed to the contaminated sand, either during transport, unloading, or processing at American Ecology’s Grandview landfill is not clear. No Army official returned calls. Follow-ups to this story will be posted.

Addition May 1: The full post about depleted uranium on Wikipedia can be found here, but here are two relevant paragraphs.

Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. Because U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, natural uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium, making it less radioactive due to the longer 4.5 billion year half-life of U-238. The external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium.

Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of numerous unanswered questions about the long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half life. While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer. However, the UK government has attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning, and studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure. Until such issues are resolved with further research, the use of DU by the military will continue to be controversial.

Updates to this story will continue to be posted.

Update May 1: NewWest blogger Irwin Horowitz of 6degrees - named because of his six college degrees including a B.S. from MIT in physics, an M.S. in astronomy and another M.S. in electrical engineering, has a strong interest in nuclear issues and follows them regularly. He told New West that the primary issue with the sand from Kuwait is the heavy-metal toxicity more than the U-238, and the radiation, in the form of alpha particles, doesn’t penetrate skin. Lead, said Horowitz, gets into the soft tissues of the body. “Depleted uranium could enter the body from ingesting it, breathing it in, or through surface skin cuts, so you’d almost have to play in the sand.”

More calls to American Ecology have not been returned.

... this is probably the best thing we could be doing

[FrostyBoy]

umm.. why is it going to Idaho?

[GePap]

What better place to dump contaminated anything?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy
umm.. why is it going to Idaho?

Cuz no one will notice.

[OzzyKP]

French fries will soon all be poisonous!

[Seedle]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
French fries will soon all be poisonous!

Well, their toxicity may increase, but I think their health value will remain the same...