[ RadSafe ] Check out Story - Bomb Test Exposed Civilians to Radiation

[Steven Dapra]

July 17

         Yes, Joel, you have that right.  I'm shocked too.  Who would have 
guessed??

         According to the article:

         "Around nearby ranches, exposure rates around 15 Roentgen per hour 
were measured just three hours after detonation.

         "Currently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that members 
of the public should not receive more than 2 millirem (about 0.002 
Roentgen) of radiation in any one hour from external radiation sources in 
any public area. The exposure rates following the Trinity test were more 
than 10,000 times this recommended dose level.

         "T.E. Widner, the director of the new CDC study, said he thinks 
evacuations would have certainly been arranged if scientists and physicians 
had known about the long-term effects of radiation exposure, even if the 
publicity threatened the mission."  (According to the article, the new CDC 
study is "reconstructed data.")

         I wonder what isotopes were being measured at the 15 R per hour 
rate, and how quickly the rate dropped back to background.

         That area of New Mexico is sparsely populated today, and would 
have had even fewer people living in it in 1945.  The nearest town today is 
Oscuro, some 25 miles away, with a population today of under 1000, and 
probably closer to 100.  This town may not have existed in 1945.  The 
article noted some ranches located within 15 miles of ground zero.  Several 
years ago I read an article about the Trinity Site in the Albuquerque 
Journal, and as I recall, the ranchers and their families had all been 
forced off their property by the War Department or by the Manhattan 
Project.  The rightful owners of the ranches would probably have been 
thrown in jail if they had been caught anywhere near their property.

         With respect to possible "evacuations," according to J. Newell 
Stannard (1988), an instrument specialist wanted to name an instrument he 
had invented "Pluto," in honor of the cartoon pup.  "General Leslie Groves 
of MED censored the name since it might suggest plutonium as a product of 
this highly secretive plant."  In light of Groves' paranoia about the mere 
word Pluto, I doubt that there would have been any evacuations.  [See 
Stannard, p. 762.  Stannard quotes Herde (1978) about Groves and 
Pluto.  See Stannard, p. 760, note (a) for Herde's background.  The Herde 
reference will be found on p. 862 of Stannard.]

Steven Dapra
sjd at swcp.com

REFERENCE

Stannard, J. Newell.  Radioactivity and Health.  Battelle Memorial 
Institute (1988).


NOTE:

         This is the only link to the article that I could get to work:

(http://news.aol.com/story/_a/bomb-test-exposed-civilians-to-radiation/20070716145209990002) 



At 08:24 PM 7/16/07 -0400, Cehn at aol.com wrote:
>Let me see if I have this:  there are elevated radiation levels after  an
>atomic bomb blast.  Do I have that right?
>
>_Click  here: Story - Bomb Test Exposed Civilians to Radiation - AOL News_
>(http://news.aol.com/story/_a/bomb-test-exposed-civilians-to-radiation/2007071614
>5209990002?ncid=NWS00010000000001)
>
>Joel I. Cehn, CHP
>_joelc at alum.wpi.edu_ (mailto:joelc at alum.wpi.edu)