[ RadSafe ] Radiation in landfills

[BLHamrick at aol.com]

Anyone interested in additional information on the news item  below need only 
Google "Tennessee Loophole."  
 
Apparently, it is still unclear to the public and politicians that not only  
does radioactive material exist virtually everywhere in our environment, but  
that radioactive materials licensees routinely release materials for  
unrestricted use, everyday, throughout the nation, based on criteria  incorporated 
into their licenses (such as the old Regulatory Guide 1.86, the  NRC's NUREG 1556 
series, or simpler criteria such as "twice  background").
 
Realistically speaking, although many landfills and scrapyards around the  
nation now have radiation detection instruments, 99% of what they pick up is  
either patient-generated waste (tissues and the like from nuclear medicine  
patients), or TENORM (from e.g., oil and gas operations, or antiquated radium  
instruments).  Virtually none of what is detected is from legal releases  made by 
licensed operating or decommissioning facilities.  The remaining 1%  of the 
alarms are generally from inadvertent (though illegal) disposals, such as  when 
a therapy iridium-192 seed accidentally ends up in a hospital's  
non-radioactive waste stream (yes, it happens, rarely, but it happens).
 
I know this has been discussed repeatedly and recently, but professional  
health physicists really need to do a better job educating the public, the  
media, and our elected officials.  And, yes, I actively make such education  a 
priority on a day to day basis wherever the opportunity arises.  
 
Barbara L. Hamrick
 
In a message dated 7/5/2007 2:29:40 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
sandyfl at cox.net writes:

Radiation levels in landfill raise group's concern
Offices, stores  have levels higher than Rutherford site, officials 
say

A lot of  folks in Rutherford County were alarmed when they found out 
that some of  the debris dumped at a local landfill had low levels of  
radiation.

But there are other places in Middle Tennessee where you  can find 
just as much radiation, if not more, than in the materials that  can 
be dumped at Middle Point Landfill.

The state Capitol, for one  place. Maybe even your own kitchen, if you 
have a granite  countertop.

That's according to spot checks in downtown Nashville last  week with 
a machine that measures radiation.

Radioactivity at high  levels can cause injury or death, but radiation 
exists virtually  everywhere in nature, often in low amounts referred 
to as "background"  levels.

"The presumption is most people would not consider them a  significant 
risk," said Ronald Price, a Vanderbilt University Medical  Center 
physicist.

That doesn't relieve the fears of many people in  Rutherford County, 
like Kathleen Ferris. The co-founder of Citizens to End  Nuclear 
Dumping in Tennessee said she knows there's radiation everywhere  but 
worries that people might be made ill from additional amounts, no  
matter how small, from the landfill.

"Nobody knows what the tipping  point is, and it may not be the same 
for every person," said the retired  college professor of English 
literature, author and  photographer.

Capitol has radiation

Roger Fenner, a state health  physics consultant, watched the gauge on 
his hand-held radiation monitor  Thursday as he walked through the 
state Capitol.

The red line  jumped on the loaf-of-bread-sized apparatus as he moved 
to the center of  the main floor, the level that includes the visitor 
counter and the  governor's office.

"There's just a little bit of something" the machine  was picking up, 
said Fenner, who works for the radiological health  division of the 
Tennessee Department of Environment and  Conservation.

The reading showed a possible yearly dose of about 61  millirems, 61 
times what's permitted in the type of materials at issue at  the 
landfill.

To get that much radiation, the person would have to  stand on that 
spot year-round.

"None of these readings would be  unhealthy," Fenner said.

He walked over to the information desk, where  Jennifer Watts was 
working, and the red line dropped to a level comparable  to about 26 
millirems a year, an average background reading.

"Oh,  good," Watts said with a smile. "I sit here a lot."

Accusations  reported

The controversy in Rutherford County over the landfill started  in 
May, when a national nuclear watchdog group put out a report accusing  
the nuclear industry of bypassing safeguards as it funnels debris 
with  low levels of radioactivity to landfills.

Private firms take leftovers,  though not the "hot" cores, when old 
nuclear plants, for instance, are  closed.

Workers separate items with "low-level" radioactivity to send  to 
facilities that can handle it, and others with small amounts or no  
radioactivity to ship to Middle Point and four other Tennessee  
landfills licensed in a state program.

Tennessee Department of  Environment and Conservation officials say 
that the 10-year-old program  gives them more oversight of the 
materials that might end up anyway in  landfills under less strict 
federal guidelines and that it includes  requirements to keep out 
dangerous materials.

The state legislature  last month imposed a temporary halt to 
additional radioactive materials  coming into the BFI Middle Point 
landfill, which is owned by the private  Allied Waste.

It went into effect June 28, when Gov. Phil Bredesen  signed it.

Also last week, the Rutherford County Commission approved  spending up 
to $20,000 to do testing for contamination, including well and  river 
water and liquid that gathers in the landfill  liner.

Elsewhere in the Capitol office complex, outside the office of  state 
Rep. John Hood of Murfreesboro, the monitor indicated about a  45-
millirem exposure potential over a year.

The brick on a church  on nearby Church Street was double that.

Along Union Street and Fifth  Avenue North, the red line jumped to 
more than three times the amount, to  about 150 millirems, when Fenner 
stood by an office building with granite  walls.

The level rose again at a home building supply store, when  Fenner put 
the monitor near granite slabs being sold for countertops and,  next, 
bags of fertilizer rich in potassium, which has a bit of  
radioactivity.







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