Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Note Anthrax is NASTY stuff. It sticks around in the soil for 40+ years regularly reinfecting livestock and the people around them - There's areas of Zimbabwe which are still infected from the 1970's.
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My mental reference for anthrax is Gruinard Island because it's one of the few places that's been as thoroughly decontaminated as possible. Gruinard Island was considered too contaminated for human visitation from 1942 to 1990, and it was only deemed safe after four years of decontamination efforts (1986-1990). Decontamination involved burning as much of the vegetation on the island as possible, the removal of the most contaminated topsoil, and the spraying of 280 tonnes of formaldehyde diluted in 2000 tonnes of sea water over the approximately 200 hectares of the island (50 liters of solution per square meter). All of that left an "acceptable" maximum of 3 spores per gram of soil.