[ RadSafe ] Claims About Three Mile Island

Wed Mar 25 22:11:58 CDT 2009

Rowena Argall brought post-Chernobyl Turkish Tea back from a trip overseas - the tea is now in the Oak Ridge Museum.  Paul Frame should be able to give you details, and if you have an opportunity to visit you should as the collection of artifacts is interesting.  Canberra also was commissioned to built live animal counters for scanning particularly for Cs-137 content in cattle and other livestock.   TMI's releases were very small compared to Chernobyl, the report on the accident identified an individual - I think he was camping on an island in the river - who received 80 mrem as the maximum. 

Barb

-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
To: edmond0033 at comcast.net
Cc: 'RadiatSafety' <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 6:43 pm
Subject: AW: AW: [ RadSafe ] Claims About Three Mile Island

Dear Ed,

Since you mention „Turkey“ I remember a funny story in this context – though
he Chernobyl situation was not funny at all.

The contamination limits in force during that time were all based on 1 kg or
 L. We found that Turkish tea, which is mostly grown in the areas close to
he former Sovjetunion was heavily contaminated – no wonder, with this big
eavy area to intercept contamination from aerosols or precipitation,
nhanced dramatically by drying the leaves. Now imagine one kilogramm of
ried tea leaves and compare it, to the amount (four spoonfuls) for a liter
f tea! It was hard work for me to press through, t
hat the contamination
hould be on the basis of the final drink! Very similar was the problem with
azelnuts, which were also heavily contaminated. The whole choclate industry
as at stake before Christmas! Also here I was finally able to persuade the
ureaucrats, that the limit should be regarded for the final product. Since
he export of hazelnuts is very important for Turkey I suppose that the
urkish authorities were happy to take up my arguments.....

What we can learn from that is, that also in radiation protection we should
se common sense!

Best regards,

Franz

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
on: edmond0033 at comcast.net [mailto:edmond0033 at comcast.net] 
esendet: Mittwoch, 25. März 2009 23:22
n: Franz Schönhofer
c: RadiatSafety; Bernard L. Cohen
etreff: Re: AW: [ RadSafe ] Claims About Three Mile Island

Franz:

You are correct.  For those who may not be aware, a cloud passed over
urkey, as they were concerned with their 'spices'.  Apparently hen the wind
hifted the 'fallout' landed on their crops.  We ran samples from this area
nd found them to contain a high amount of fission products.

Ed Baratta

edmond0033 at comcast.net
----- Original Message -----
rom: "Franz Schönhofer" <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
o: edmond0033 at comcast.net, "Bernard L. Cohen" <blc+ at pitt.edu>
c: "RadiatSafety" <radsafe at radlab.nl>
ent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 2:00:25 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
ubject: AW: [ RadSafe ] Claims About Three Mil
e Island
Ed, Bernard, Roger and RADSAFErs,
To give you a rough comparison between the effect of the TMI and the
hernobl accident: First of all the TMI accident had only local (if at all
ny) impact. The Chernobyl accident had with few exceptions an impact on
early all European countries. When you talk about pCi's of I-131 then I can
ell you that our units for contamination were nCi/l of milk. For Cs-137 for
nstance in beef we had a limit of 16 nCi/kg (not pCi!) and these values
ere very frequently exceeded. We would have been happy if food had TMI
ontamiantion! 
If those people writing horror stories would think for just a second and try
o use common sense instead of paranoia on radioactivity they would
ecognize that people in Europe are still living after the Chernobyl
ccident and even survived the many years of high fallout after the
tmospheric nuclear tests. 
"Don't disturb me with facts, I have made up my mind!"
Franz
Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
inRat i.R.
abicherg. 31/7
-1160 Wien/Vienna
USTRIA

----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
on: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im Auftrag
on edmond0033 at comcast.net
esendet: Mittwoch, 25. März 2009 18:17
n: Bernard L. Cohen
c: RadiatSafety
etreff: Re: [ RadSafe ] Claims About Three Mile Island

I agree with you Bernard.  We ( USFDA ) analyzed over 4,000 samples from
his area.  Many of the samples were of unpasteurized milk.  The majority of
he results for Iodine-131 were non detectable.  There were a handful that
id contain some detect
able amounts, but were in Range II of the Federal
adiation Protection Guidelines which called for continued surveillance.  I
elieve the maximum was ~40 pCi /L.  The Guidelines for Range II was 10-100
Ci /L.  (Please excuse that I didn't convert it to the new units).  This
mount certainly was exceed by the above ground weapons tests by the USA and
he then USSR.  Also the Chernobyl incident was even higher, in that the
esultant fission products were certainly much higher.  Strontium-89 and 90
as non-detectable from the 
TMI incident.  As for the 'bubble' , I have my own opinion.  The news media
nd its adherence's love to draw its own conclusions for their own agenda. 

Ed Baratta 

edmond0033 at comcast.net 

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