A public information session and meeting will be conducted Tuesday, March 10, at the DeWitt Middle School on Warren Road to brief members of the community on the status of Cornell's former radiation disposal site in Lansing.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) is seeking public comment on five official documents relating to the site: a Remedial Investigation Report, a Monitoring Plan, a Feasibility Study Work Plan, a Citizen Participation Plan and a Baseline Human Health Risk Assessment. The public comment period ends March 30.

Representatives of NYSDEC, Cornell and McLaren/Hart, an environmental consultant hired by the university, will be at the school March 10 from 4 to 5 p.m. for an informal information session and from 7 to 9 p.m. for a formal presentation, question-and-answer session and comment period. Written comments can be addressed to Martin Brand, NYSDEC Project Manager, 50 Wolf Road, Albany, N.Y. 12233.

The former radiation disposal site, in a remote area on two acres north of Tompkins County Airport, was used from 1956 to 1978 to dispose of low-level radioactive waste used in laboratory experiments at Cornell. Monitored since 1984, it was the subject of intensive scrutiny after the university detected traces of the chemical paradioxane in water and soil in 1993. A solvent used in radiation experiments, paradioxane has caused cancer in laboratory animals. A former chemical disposal site 750 feet to the east of the radiation disposal site has undergone extensive cleanup and continues to be monitored.

Interim remedial measures undertaken by the university under a consent decree signed with the DEC include: clearing the site of vegetation; covering it with a synthetic cap and soil cover; erecting a new fence that expands the secured area by about 60 feet in all directions; and installing a leak-proof pipeline to transport occasional discharges of ground water and surface water to a collection and treatment system on the former chemical disposal site.

Documents pertaining to the radiation disposal site are on file and available for inspection at the Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca, Lansing Village Hall and Environmental Compliance Office in the Humphreys Service Building at Cornell.

The risk assessment, completed in December, found that the site poses no present danger to public health or safety and can be contained and monitored to prevent any problems in the future.