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In the late 80’s, I worked a contract radioactive decon job in a shit hole town called Lima in Ohio (to read more about this town and the job, please read http://daveka.com/green-socks).
Basically, this chemical plant was using uranium dust as a catalyst to create some other material. There were two huge drums that had a diameter of about 6 feet that tapered down on both ends to a diameter of about a foot. They called them *hoppers* (I have no idea why 
). They were both positioned vertically in a closed pipe system and within them is where the *magic* happens.
The mechanical process is pretty simple. Place several pounds of U-238 in the hopper, switch on a powerful blower that was somewhere up the system that is connected to the bottom of the hopper so the uranium dust would be swirling and suspended within the hopper’s volume, but not enough pressure to get blown out the top.
Then you release the gas into the hopper. Exposure to the swirling dust modifies the gas’s properties (don’t know what it did – they didn’t tell me that!). Since the gas was lighter than the dust, it would escape through the top of the hopper where it was collected.
The reason I was there is because *hopper presure* + *shitty weld joint* = *uranium 238 everywhere*. And I do mean everywhere. It got into the ventalation system which carried it even further into the structure which rendered the entire facilty low-level waste. They should have just buried the whole thing rather than try to save it.
Cleaning the facility creates even more contaminated waste. The tyvek suits, the gloves, the masks, and the booties become radio active waste once you’ve entered the contained area. All the rags, cleaning bottles, mops, and power tools like sand blasters, hydro blasters, and hydro-lasers and their by-products (sand and water) also become waste that needs to be dealt with. Scary stuff!
Lets talk about the power tools.
Sand Blasting generally involves a pressurized vessel that contains an abrasive material such as sand, metallic particals, crushed shells, or even baking soda and introduces it into a compressed air stream. The particals in the stream can take paint or rust off of metal surfaces and is meant to be used in dry applications.
Hydro Blasting is much like Sand Blasting except for the fact presurized water is also introduced. This proves to be a more capable approach to getting into nooks and crannies that could not be reached any other way.
A Hydro Laser is similar to the blasting tools above except for the fact it uses only H2O as the abrasive agent and that it can exceed pressures of the other two dramaticly. With the unit, you can carve *Joanie Loves Chachi* in cured concrete. There are models that are used in manufacturing that can cut through 7 inches of steel.
OK, back to *Find the Meatball*.
Since the dust particals from the hoppers was so fine, it got into the tiny pores in the paint that was on the metal surfaces. We used a Sand Blaster to strip the paint for these cases, but in the cases where there was exposed porus concrete or gravel infused tar surfaces, the Hydro Laser was the right choice. Not on full blast though 
.
One of the guys on the job with me had some experience with hydro lazing, so when the time came that we had to enlists extreme water pressure, he was the poor bastard to man the nozzle end of it. I sometimes was tasked with standing back by the compressor to verify it was being properly supplied with water and that it wasn’t overheating. I didn’t like it at all. The compressor was somtimes up to 2.5K PSI. A grave feeling would overcome me when ever I stood within 10 feet of it. Remember the first time you mowed the lawn with a gas powered lawn mower? That’s how it felt. Scary.
So, I’m watching the compressor and the Dude with the experience is peeling off a thin layer off a concrete surface. He was at it for about 30 minutes when he mentioned his arms were getting fatigued. His solution you ask? Straddle the hose between his legs and pinch the hose with his thighs so that all he had to do with his arms was to steer the stream – his legs would take on most of the work fighting the hose.
After several minutes of this *great idea*, I hear the valve coupling violently detaching itself from the hose. When I looked up I saw the guy with all the experience slowly turn around with awe and mystery on his face. He was also bleeding from his crotch area quite a bit.
After they patched him together, we came to visit him in the hospital. He explained what happend.
“Hey guys! I’m doing fine. When the nozzle seperated from the coupling, the pressure from the stream ripped through the tyvek, my jeans, my nut bag, and blew one of my nuts off! It also blew half the head of my dick off too. Wanna see?”
No shit… This guy had no shame he would show it off to anyone that wanted to see it and if you didn’t ask to see it, he would offer you the opportunity.
As we were walking out of his hospital room, he says, “Hey. Fifty bucks to anyone who can find my ball!”
When we were back at the plant, we did look for it. None of us found it. I would imagine that his nut was completly disndegrated when a 25,000 PSI stream of water came in contact with it.
I'm hooked on etymology, folklore, writing, live music, and making movies. I jam the axe and I'm currently learning how to beat the skins. I write cool software and meaningful screenplays.
I like to drive fast with the top down in the rain with the music cranked.
My tastes in TV, music, film, and literature are broad but obscure. I keep a journal, write screenplays, compose music, take many pictures, and create software.
When camping at night, you can find me staring into the campfire either playing the guitar or telling a spooky story under the moonlight. I love thunder storms, Friday is my favorite day and my favorite number is 9. 
It would appear that the ball was already rolling before this comment was posted.
Thanks for the nice post. I always try to save construction or concrete related posts like this one.
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That was interesting . I admire your finesse that you put into your writing . Please do move forward with more like this.
As usual an informative post, thanks.
Good points raised here, (or rather, those bits I could easily read). I am color blind (protanopia in my case). I mostly use Opera browser (no idea if that is of any importance), and a great deal of this web page is a little difficult for me to read. I know that it is not your problem really, however it would be great if you would consider color blind folk like me whilst carrying out the next site redesign.
Odd , your site shows up with a yellow hue to it, what color is the primary color on your site?
Strange this post is totaly unrelated to what I was searching google for, but it was listed on the first page. I guess your doing something right if Google likes you enough to put you on the first page of a non related search.
Although I would’ve preferred if you went into a little bit more detail, I still got the gist of what you meant. I agree with it. It might not be a popular idea, but it makes sense. Will definitely come back for more of this. Great work
Hey compañero, realmente tenido gusto este poste. Can’ t parece conseguirlo para dar formato a la derecha en Internet Explorer, se dobla todo para arriba, pero no trabaja muy bien en Firefox tan ninguna preocupación.
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Ciao!
outstanding post! great advice, will take on board!
Stumbled into this site by chance but I’m sure glad I clicked on that link. You definitely answered all the questions I’ve been dying to answer for some time now. Will definitely come back for more of this. Thank you so much
Even while I think the post is on the right track there are actually one or two tips which i tend not to go along with.
A few things I should point out about kids toys , Content is good. I would hope to be back tracking.
Did you create your own blog or did a program do it? Could you please respond? 35
I’m experiencing a bit of problems studying the conclusion of the clause. The closing paragraph gets split halfway through. You should have a look at that.Nevertheless, the rest of the read was great!
I’m actually experienced with this, and I agree with you.
Glad to see that this site works well on my Blackberry Bold, everything I want to do is functional. Thanks for keeping it up to date with the latest.
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.
your article is very useful
Hey, I just hopped over to your site via StumbleUpon. Not somthing I would normally read, but I liked your thoughts none the less. Thanks for making something worth reading.
It’s a WordPress template.
I’m glad you like my site, but I don’t know how your product would fit the theme. Thanks!
It’s based on http://www.arrastheme.com/.
I’ll put it on the list!
Thanks for the heads up!
Great articles & Nice a site….
I found your site via yahoo thanks for the post. I will bookmark it for future reference. Thanks! (website removed)
I feel like I’m constantly looking for interesting things to read about a variety of subjects, but I manage to include your blog among my reads every day because you have honest entries that I look forward to. Here’s hoping there’s a lot more great material coming!
There is obviously a lot to know about his, I think you made some good points. Anyhow keep up the good work.
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Thanks for the well-thought article. I am actually at work right now! So I need to go off without reading all I’d like. But, I put your blog on my RSS feed so that I can read more.
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Yes you learn more while you share your knowledge with others. . . . . .
I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work.
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Hey – nice blog, just looking around some websites, seems a really nice platform you are using. I’m currently using Wordpress for a few of my sites but looking to change one of them over to a platform similar to yours as a trial run.
i know this is not exactly on topic, but i have a blog using the blogengine platform as well and i’m having issues with my comments displaying. is there a setting i am forgetting? maybe you could help me out? thank you.
I think you have a great page here… today was my first time coming here.. I just happened to find it doing a google search. anyway, good post.. I’ll be bookmarking this page for sure.
Hi. I wanted to drop you a quick note to express my thanks. I’ve been following your blog for a month or so and have picked up a ton of good information as well as enjoyed the way you’ve structured your site. I am attempting to run my own blog but I think its too general and I want to focus more on smaller topics. Being all things to all people is not all that its cracked up to be.
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Recently, I didn’t give so much thought to writing comments on blog entries and have left comments even less. Checking out your insightful page, will probably encourage me to do so more regularly.
Hey compañero, realmente tenido gusto este poste. Can’ t parece conseguirlo para dar formato a la derecha en Internet Explorer, se dobla todo para arriba, pero no trabaja muy bien en Firefox tan ninguna preocupación.
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