Irradiation's Ground Zero: Chicago, Illinois
The nation's middle section continues to be the hotbed for food irradiation activities, particularly the Chicago area where two food irradiation facilities are scheduled to begin zapping food products this year.

[ Read what the Government wants to do with Irradiated food ]

 

              

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The nation's middle section continues to be the hotbed for food irradiation activities, particularly the Chicago area where two food irradiation facilities are scheduled to begin zapping food products this year. But hype about new irradiation facilities is nothing new to those familiar with this issue, and nor is the subsequent news about their failure once they hit the consumer opposition that runs high against a technology that exposes food to radiation the equivalent of hundreds of millions of chest x-rays.

The two corporations zeroing in on the Chicago area with their irradiation dreams are Surebeam, a subsidiary of the Titan Corporation, most famous for its government contracts involving Star Wars technology, and Ion Beam Applications, (IBA), a Belgium corporation that recently bought the U.S.-based SteriGenics, an irradiation company with a checkered past when it comes to the safety of its facilities. Surebeam is building a new facility in the Chicago area that utilizes its high-energy electronic beam irradiation technology in the hopes that, according to a corporate press release, will process over "250 million pounds [of food] annually." The facility is scheduled to be up and running by the end of this year.

The parent corporation of Surebeam, Titan, has also built an irradiation facility in Sioux City, Iowa, in conjunction with Iowa State University. Titan describes itself as a "diversified technology company," but it's best known for its work developing the controversial lasers intended to be used in the Star Wars defense system popularized during the Reagan Administration. Gene Ray, the real name of the head of the Titan Corporation, apparently doesn't see much difference between killing incoming missiles and the food about to sit on America's collective dinner plates. IBA, meanwhile, is looking to retrofit an existing irradiation facility owned and operated by SteriGenics in Schaumburg, Illinois.

The Belgium-based IBA acquired SteriGenics in July 1999 in an effort, according to its web site, "to become the only company in the world to offer all complementary technologies in the field of sterilization and ionization, specifically, ethylene oxide, gamma, electron beam and x-ray." IBA, like its new rival, Titan, also has a long history of governmental contracts in the area of nuclear energy. In 1992, for example, IBA collaborated with the French Atomic Energy Commission to patent and introduce a linear accelerator-style irradiation technique known as "Rhodotron." Interestingly, IBA originally operated out of the nuclear research laboratories at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium before being spun-off as its own corporate entity in 1986.

With IBA's purchase of SteriGenics it has acquired a corporation responsible for a nuclear accident that many have called the "Three Mile Island of irradiation." In June 1988, a SteriGenics facility in Decatur, Georgia was found to be leaking Cesium-137. The leak eventually contaminated the facility, several employees, and consumer products such as milk cartons being sterilized at the plant, leading to a $40 million-plus clean-up cost. At the time, SteriGenics was operating under the name Radiation Sterilizers, Inc., but after skipping town on the clean-up bill after its nuclear accident the corporation attempted to cleanse its shady past by renaming itself SteriGenics.

As for the good guys in the battle against making Chicago ground zero for food irradiation, a new group known as the Illinois Food Safety Coalition (IFSC) has sprung up to spread the word and lead the fight against the facilities. One of the coordinators of IFSC, Paul Fehribach, has been tireless in his efforts to reach out to Illinois residents and build a strong national alliance with groups like Food & Water and Public Citizen in their efforts to put a stop to Chicago's irradiation madness. To get involved, contact the IFSC at (312) 670-2801 or visit their web site at www.illinoisfoodsafety.org.

Michael Colby

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