Coronado Has Electronic Eye on Radiation

This resort city, famous for its Hotel Del Coronado and the bridge linking it to nearby San Diego, may soon be known for having a main street equipped to monitor atmospheric radiation levels.

Officials believe Coronado is the only city in the state that regularly checks for radioactive contamination, a practice launched in response to residents’ concerns.

The detection system relies on several Geiger counters installed along the city’s main artery, said Arch Kelley, a retired Navy captain and police volunteer who created it.

The equipment used in Coronado is standard civil defense apparatus from the 1960s commonly used to measure radiation spills, and while it’s not as accurate as more sophisticated equipment that has been devised, federal officials say monitoring the city’s radiation is a good idea.

“If a city wants to do this, I’d be the last person to say it’s not a useful idea,” said Greg Yuhas, facilities protection officer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Walnut Creek.

The U.S. Customs Service conducts similar checks on commercial traffic passing through the border stations, as does the California Highway Patrol at its various highway stations where weight and safety checks are made on trucks.

“Spending money on detection devices is not frivolous for a city near a port of entry which perceives potential problems with contaminated materials passing through,” Yuhas said.

He recalled that in 1983, batches of radioactive steel reinforcing rods trucked into the United States from Mexico passed undetected through the El Paso customs station.

Customs officials have since set up radiation measuring equipment at ports of entry to guard against a repeat of the El Paso incident.

The incident also prompted Kelley to propose the radiation detection system for Coronado, located across the bay from San Diego, about 10 miles from the Mexican border.