[ RadSafe ] Fw: [FIREBASEVOICE] Radioactive Dumping

[Dan McCarn]

Hi Group:

Last time I checked, the Chatanooga Shale outcrops in and around
Murfreesboro. The "typical" concentration (in secular equilibrium) of
uranium in the Chatanooga Shale ranges from about 80 - 120 mg/Kg
Uranium.

Assuming 100 mg/Kg (0.01% U), going back to the "garden" calculation
of source term: 20m x 20m x .25m @ 0.01% U gives me about 20 Kg U in
200 Tonnes (100 cu.m) or a "typical" backyard where the children
play... Just for the Natural Uranium (238+235+234), that would be 13.7
mCi (5.0x10^8 Bq) per garden not to mention the rest of the progeny.
Total activity would be about 94 mCi per garden (3.5x10^9 Bq) for the
entire uranium/radium series.

The point is that the "background" is probably hotter than the low-level waste!

Dan ii

Dan W McCarn, Geologist
Albuquerque & Houston

On 5/15/07, Roger Helbig <rhelbig at california.com> wrote:
> I doubt this is very credible or the waste is not what it is claimed to be by this TV story or the Nuclear Resource Information Center which I gather is really a disinformation center.  This was sent to a group that has a number of veterans, particularly Vietnam veterans on it by a 61 year old Shriner in Tennessee who calls himself Bugs on the internet.
>
> Roger
>
>
> Tennessee has hide this from most citizens,
> www.wsmv.com  TV, uncovered this today and reported it on tonights news cast..05-14-07..in Nashville,Tn..
>
> bugs
> Radioactive Dumping Occurs In Rutherford County
> 10 Million Pounds Of Radioactive Material Dumped In 2004
> Reported By Demetria Kalodimos
>
> POSTED: 4:44 pm CDT May 14, 2007
> UPDATED: 7:12 pm CDT May 14, 2007
> MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- A Channel 4 I-Team investigation uncovered a practice the state of Tennessee approved, but nobody else seemed to know about it for nearly 20 years.
>
> Video: Radioactive Materials Dumped In Rutherford County
>
> Tennessee has been allowing companies from all over the country to dump radioactive waste into ordinary trash landfills, including the Middle Point landfill in Rutherford County.
>
>
>
> More than 10 million pounds of radioactive material was dumped in Murfreesboro in a single year.
>
> There are at least four of these facilities in Tennessee, which is more than any other state in the country.
>
> For nearly 20 years, the state has made it cheap and convenient for all of them to put low level radioactive waste out with your trash.
>
> "Soils, concrete, asphalt, equipment ... there's a big market. This is seen as a place for that waste to go. Nobody wants to keep it where it is. They want to get rid of it. Tennessee is the sinkhole for nuclear waste around the country," said Nuclear Information and Resource Service watchdog, Diane D'Arrigo.
>
> Trucks roll onto the scales at Murfreesboro's Middle Point landfill 24 hours a day. Channel 4 captured video of the trucks as they were checked and cleared for radiation in as little as two minutes.
>
> "(The waste) will go past a radiation detector, and if that doesn't trip any alarms, it will go straight out to what's called the working face where the waste is disposed," said Glen Pugh of the Tennessee Solid Waste Department.
>
> Why Murfreesboro? The waste processors chose it.
>
> In fact the whole program was their idea to save money and space in the few places out of state that are actually licensed to take nuclear waste.
>
> "If you take up a sidewalk at a nuclear facility or even tear down some auxiliary facilities ... facilities that are not significantly contaminated, the risk is sufficiently allowable that we believe they can be put into a landfill," said Eddie Nanney of the Tennessee Radiological Health Department.
>
> Here's some of what Channel 4 News found:
>
> a.. In 1994, Middle Point landfill was approved for 200,000 to 400,000 pounds per month of spent ion exchange resin, pellets that filter radiation out of water
>
> a.. In 1999, 40,000 pounds a week of soil from an area where scrap thorium alloy parts were stored. Thorium is naturally radioactive, with a half-life of 14 billion years.
>
> a.. The dump took trash from a restricted area of a nuclear facility that included 4,800 tons a month of trash.
>
> a.. Loads of radioactive metal were taken to the dump, but it wasn't clear where it came from.
>
> a.. Also 400 tons of month of contaminated dirt came from the University of California at Los Angeles.
>
> "Why bring it all here in order to disperse it, even if it's at small amounts? Because no amount is actually harmless. There's no safe level," said D'Arrigo.
>
> In one year's time, Middle Point went from nearly 166,000 pounds of low level waste in 2004 to more than 10 million pounds in 2005.
>
> "What happened in 2005 (to cause the increase)?" asked reporter Demetria Kalodimos.
>
> "My guess would be that licensee was receiving a nice contract and disposed of a lot of material in that year," said Nanney.
>
> "That's a huge increase from one year to the next," said Kalodimos.
>
> "It's a huge increase but still a very small increment. It's way less than 5 percent," said Nanney.
>
> And 5 percent is important. Up until now, the state has had just a few key rules for dumping low level radioactive waste through what it calls Bulk Survey for Release or BSFR.
>
> The total amount of low level nuclear waste cannot exceed 5 percent of what's in the landfill, but that's once a dump is closed for good. Officials said they're always keeping track of that amount.
>
> And the total radiation dose, be it from plutonium, strontium, cesium, uranium or the host of other isotopes they've accepted, cannot exceed a measurement of 1 millirem, even to a person who later lived on the landfill, farmed crops there and drank the water from a well.
>
> "Do you know the increment that 1 millirem of radiation would cause? Point 8 additional cancers. That's the level of risk were talking about ... very low," said Nanney.
>
> "A millirem is an expression of biological damage to tissue. It's not something you can measure and say, 'Ahah! you've got a millirem.' Nuclear waste should not be brought into this state and dispersed without people knowing it," said D'Arrigo.
>
> In researching this report, Channel 4 found that no one seemed to know about the bulk survey for release program. There's never been a public hearing to discuss this issue.
>
> Related Link:
>
> a.. For more information, read the just released report titled Out of Control On Purpose that is available at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service Web site.
>
> Copyright 2007 by WSMV.com
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-- 
Dan W McCarn