[ RadSafe ] Chernobyl

[Dan W McCarn]

Hi Mike:

My time around the exclusion zone was in 1995-1996, and I still remember
fondly the fun I had skinny-dipping in the Prypiat River upstream from the
power plant.  Perhaps it should be a mandatory exercise for those who want
to talk about the environmental issues to walk in the zone for a few days.
My greatest fear was the possibility of getting entangled in fishing hooks
and lines from previous visitors. 

My dosimeters recorded only 80% of the cumulative gamma radiation that my
kids were being exposed to in Albuquerque.  I worked at the Sosny Labs near
Minsk most of the time.

On a side note, my Ludlum Model 19 scintillation counter records over twice
the background radiation here in Santa Fe as my home in France, 30 km west
of Paris.  This is attributable, of course, to Santa Fe's significant
elevation at 7260 ft (2134 m).

I haven't started glowing yet!

Dan ii

P.S. skinny-dipping == swimming without the benefit of a bathing suit or
other clothes...

--
Dan W McCarn, Geologist
3007 S. St. Francis Drive #818
Santa Fe, NM 87508-5938
+1-505-310-3922 (Mobile - New Mexico)
+1-505-240-6872 (Skype - New Mexico) 
+33.(0).6.47.86.05.25 (Mobile - France)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email)
 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Brennan, Mike (DOH)
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:00
To: sebastian at matralab.com; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl

Not the worst article I've read about Chernobyl:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/711752--life-returns-to-an-eer
ie-chernobyl#article

I find Timothy Mousseau's desperation to not accept that wildlife is
doing better in the exclusion zone than it is doing elsewhere to be sad.
I can accept that barn swallows nesting in the sarcophagus might well be
affected by the high levels of radiation there.  I have a harder time
accepting that that group is representative of the population throughout
the zone.  As for the number of invertebrates; apart from issues of
whether or not there sampling technique was valid, there is the problem
that we don't know what the background population density should be in
an area where human activity isn't disrupting the predator/prey balance.



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