[ RadSafe ] Re: Panel wants tighter radiation security
John R Johnson
idias at interchange.ubc.ca
Sat Oct 20 12:37:44 CDT 2007
Dan and other Radsafers
Did they also "skip" the TENORM sources in pipeline scale?
John
***************
John R Johnson, PhD
CEO, IDIAS, Inc.
4535 West 9th Ave
Vancouver, B. C.
V6R 2E2, Canada
(604) 222-9840
idias at interchange.ubc.ca
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan McCarn" <hotgreenchile at gmail.com>
To: "Clayton J Bradt" <cjb01 at health.state.ny.us>; <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Re: Panel wants tighter radiation security
> Hello Group:
>
>
>
> Being a geologist, I thought I might add my two cents into this crazy
> discussion: Apparently, the defense folks skipped the issue about the
> many,
> many neutron and gamma sources currently in use in the petroleum and
> mining
> industries worldwide, not to mention the innumerable "retired" sources.
> Every
> country that has a potential petroleum or mineral resource has numerous
> 10-15 Curie sources running around in the bush to remote locations.
>
>
>
> The hospitals present a "target" that can be hardened by "normal"
> Safeguards
> measures to make them "resistant" to terrorist attacks. If they are truly
> concerned about this, perhaps the first step would be to initiate more
> aggressive active and passive Safeguards measures. This would be far less
> expensive than the alternative.
>
>
>
> I remember another discussion about soil density & moisture probes several
> months ago being of concern with milliCurie sources. That seemed to drop
> off the public's radar after only a few weeks.
>
>
>
> Regards!
>
>
>
> Dan ii
>
>
>
> Dan W McCarn, Geologist
>
> Albuquerque & Houston
>
>
> On 10/17/07, Clayton J Bradt <cjb01 at health.state.ny.us> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> The concern about Cs-137 irradiators did not originate with the Defense
>> Science Board, although they are the first that I have heard advocate
>> removing these units from service. People from the national labs, DNDO
>> and
>> DHS have been ringing the alarm for quite some time, with the objective
>> of
>> improving security over these units. The analyses leading to the concern
>> have centered around the amount of uniformly distributed contamination
>> that
>> would result in an exclusion zone, a la Chernobyl. Although based upon
>> worst case assumptions, the physics and health physics of these analyses
>> are sound enough: its the assumptions about social psychology and
>> economics
>> that I find unconvincing. I don't think we can use Prypriat as a model
>> for
>> dealing with lower Manhattan.
>>
>> Previous posters on this thread indicated that the proposal to get rid of
>> Cs-137 self-shielded irradiators was ridiculous. I wanted to point out
>> that it wasn't the uninformed, but rather HPs that have focussed
>> attention
>> on these devices. If there is blame to distribute, at least some of it
>> needs to be directed at our own profession. A little more security for
>> the
>> units might be appropriate, if it can be done without impinging on the
>> vital mission that they serve.
>>
>> In my opinion, the risk of Graft v. Host Disease as a result of
>> transfusing
>> unirradiated blood products far outweighs the risk of economic collapse
>> should several blocks of lower Manhattan be contaminated with Cs-137.
>> Unless an equally effective alternative technology is readily available
>> to
>> replace these units, to propose their removal from service is reckless.
>>
>>
>> Clayton J. Bradt
>> Assistant Bureau Director
>> BERP
>> NYS Dept. of Health
>> 518-402-7578
>>
>>
>>
>> Cindy Bloom
>> <radbloom at comcast
>> .net> To
>> Clayton J Bradt
>> 10/17/2007 01:09 <cjb01 at health.state.ny.us>,
>> PM radsafe at radlab.nl
>> cc
>>
>> Subject
>> Re: [ RadSafe ] Re: Panel wants
>> tighter radiation security
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Clayton,
>>
>> I'm confused. The original post stated:
>> "The report comes from the Defense Science Board, a panel of retired
>> military and CIA officials and defense industry experts who offer
>> the
>> Pentagon possible solutions to actual and potential national
>> security
>> problems. It is expected to be released late this year."
>> The above description doesn't really sound like DOE HPs. Authors names
>> do
>> not appear to be available because the report is not yet released, so I
>> guess time will tell who has written the opinions (if names are included
>> in
>> the report - names were not readily available on the Board's web site).
>>
>> Also, it was difficult for me to glean your opinion regarding continued
>> use
>> of Cs-137 irradiators from your note, which seems to be dependent on
>> your
>> (undisclosed) regard for DOE HPs.
>>
>> Cindy
>>
>> At 02:03 PM 10/15/2007 -0400, Clayton J Bradt wrote:
>>
>> The people leading the charge against Cs-137 self-shielded
>> irradiators are
>> not ignorant bureaucrats and politicians: they're health physicists
>> working
>> for DOE.
>>
>> Clayton J. Bradt
>> Assistant Bureau Director
>> BERP
>> NYS Dept. of Health
>> 518-402-7578
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Dan W McCarn
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