43
Radioactivity testing company left Youngstown
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOwn
Austin Master Services has left Youngstown.
The radiological engineering and services firm that was located at 240 Sinter Court moved to Belmont County at the beginning of the year because of the lack of business it saw here.
“We wanted to expand our services,” said Pat Horkman of Austin Master Services. “It just opened a lot of doors for us. We were pretty limited in Youngstown.”
The company worked in Youngstown to test the radioactivity levels of waste before it was sent to be disposed of in Ohio landfills.
The Pottstown, Pa.-based company received its permit from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources last February to operate at the Industrial Waste Control site on Sinter Court in Youngstown.
AMS used the site to have trucks pull up to a test bay and have the radioactive levels within a waste container tested in less than an hour. Typically, these tests would take at least 21 days.
AMS used the method of “in situ gamma spectroscopy” to scan the outside of entire containers to determine the radioactivity levels of the materials.
But the company did not see much business here.
Last July, the company went to city hall to explain the process and answer questions from the public, primarily members of Frackfree Mahoning Valley.
AMS used the expedited analytical process to test the levels of radium 226 and radium 228 in technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material or TENORM.
This can include testing of materials such as drilling muds or hydraulic fracturing flowback or production water sludge.
The concern from residents in Youngstown was the presence of the radioactive materials in the city.
Susie Beiersdorfer, a geologist and member of Frackfree Mahoning Valley, still has concern over the company’s presence anywhere.
“We keep pushing forward,” she said. “It is about everywhere. It is just moving a radioactive process somewhere else.”
Last November, AMS received another permit from ODNR to operate in Martins Ferry, Ohio.
“We are good right where we are now,” Horkman said.