[ RadSafe ] Chernobyl haunts the Norwegian uplands

[John R Johnson]

When I worked at AECL's CRNL in the 70's and 80's, we always asked workers
with unexpected amount of Cs-137 in their whole body counts if they had been
eating game from Northern Ontario. If the answer was "yes" we wouldn't do a
urine bioassay for Sr-90, if "no" we assumed they had been contaminated at
work and an investigation was done.

I think Gary Kramer (now at Health Canada) has monitored people in Yukon and
the NWT, but I don't know what he found.

John
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John R Johnson, Ph.D.
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-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
Behalf Of edmond0033
Sent: October 30, 2006 8:03 AM
To: ROY HERREN; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl haunts the Norwegian uplands


I seem to recall that most of the Cesium-137 in the northern areas of Europe
(Laplands) (including Alaska and Northern Canada) was from the above ground
weapons testing performed by the Soviet Union and the United States in the
late 50's and early 60's.  One can still find Stronium-90 and Cesium-137 in
'bones' of cattle and tree ash.  A litle more than one half life has pasted
since then, so that they will be still in the soil and ground covering
vegetation.  It will take several more half-lives before meat from these
animals will be safe.  Has anyone thought of 'whole body counting' the
inhabitants to see what their uptake is especially the younger ones?

Just a thought!!

Ed Baratta
----- Original Message -----
From: "ROY HERREN" <royherren2005 at yahoo.com>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 4:13 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl haunts the Norwegian uplands


>
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10393-chernobyl-haunts-the-norwegian-u
plands.html
>
>  Chernobyl haunts the Norwegian uplands
>   12:00 28 October 2006
>   From New Scientist Print Edition.
>  Tougher controls on the slaughter of sheep have been imposed in Norway
> after they were found to be contaminated with unusually high levels of
> radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
>  The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) says the problem has
> arisen because the sheep have feasted on an unusually large crop of
> mushrooms, which were more plentiful than usual because of wet weather.
> Previous research has shown that fungi take up more radioactivity from the
> soil than grasses or other plants.
>  There are 36 areas of upland Norway where Chernobyl contamination still
> requires controls on sheep. According to the NRPA, levels of caesium-137
> from the Chernobyl disaster reached 7000 becquerels per kilogram in sheep
> this year, more than twice maximum levels in previous years.
>  Farmers can reduce the level of radioactivity in sheep by giving them
> non-contaminated food for a month before slaughter. For some farmers, this
> period will now have to be doubled to reduce caesium-137 levels to below
> Norway's safety limit of 600 bq/kg.
>  Per Strand, the NRPA's head of environmental radioactivity, stresses that
> the precautions mean that lamb on the market is safe to eat. He says,
> though, that the discovery of such high levels of radioactivity so long
> after the Chernobyl accident came as a surprise.
>  "No one at the time expected contamination to be so high more than 20
> years after the event," he says.
>
>
> Roy Herren
>
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