![]() A public health study of Ottawa's radiation areas from 2006 found that the state-owned site - as well as another, which has since been cleaned up - pose a health hazard. People exposed to high levels of radiation could be at a higher risk of developing cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A 2010 court order requires the state to split the cost of remediation, about $70 million, with the federal government. The state of Illinois owns the area, 17 acres on the east side of the Fox River once slated to become a state park. Over the last more than two decades, the Environmental Protection Agency removed or contained radium in more than a dozen sites. With it, he and a friend found more than a dozen spots with radiation in Ottawa, Illinois. Ken Ricci bought a Geiger counter at a garage sale in 1982. ![]() Look what happened, it was all cleaned up." "It was kind of goofy, you buy something like ," Ricci says. While the threat to the workers' health was known, the risk of the radiation to public health in the city wasn't fully understood. That paint sickened and killed many of their workers, nicknamed the radium girls, and eventually spread radiation throughout Ottawa. Their discovery started a battle to clean up contaminants left by two companies that made glow-in-the-dark watches with radium-laced paint. Soon after, he and a friend used it to find several hot spots of contamination throughout the central Illinois city. Ken Ricci refers to his purchase of a Geiger counter, a handheld machine that detects radiation, as a "God wink." The 91-year-old Ottawa resident picked it up at a garage sale in 1982.
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