[ RadSafe ] Radon Daughters on People [was "Salsman warning"]

[Hansen, Richard]

Roy,

The incident you mention of the nuclear power plant worker coming to
work contaminated with radon daughter products is briefly described on
the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection web site:

The Saga of the Bureau of Radiation Protection
...Another seminal event for the Bureau occurred on December 19, 1984.
Notification was received from the chief raddie at Limerick that a
worker was coming to work contaminated. The contamination was detected
by a portal monitor. The contamination was natural. The utility had the
worker's home checked, and found extremely high concentrations of radon
there. The Limerick chief raddie reasoned correctly that the problem was
not a utility problem, but rather a state problem. The radon story began
with that phone call.
In the early months of the radon project, attention was confined to the
Boyertown area. A field office was established in Gilbertsville. By the
end of 1985, the project included the entire Reading Prong and adjacent
areas. By late 1986, the program began to go statewide.
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/brp/BRP_Info/BRP_History.htm

I have a question for radsafe:

What are some methods to use in the field to determine if low levels of
radiation detected on a person or clothing is due to radon daughters
rather than radioactive contamination from other sources?

Two situations come to mind. First, during a law enforcement
investigation of possible illegal use of radioactive material, the
persons involved (including the officers) may be checked for radioactive
contamination using handheld survey meters. 
A second situation would be emergency response personnel checking fellow
responders and members of the public for contamination at the scene of a
potential incident involving radioactive material.

Depending on the organization, the personnel may have access to survey
meters with GM pancake detector probes and NaI gamma detector probes
(such as 1-in. diameter by 1-inch long NaI detectors). Hand-held
NaI-based radionuclide identification instruments (or RIIDs) may be
available. Some organizations also have alpha-beta scintillator
contamination probes, but most probably will not. 

Examples of this type of situation include training exercises where
radiation levels exceeded twice background levels on some of the Tyvek
suits worn by responders (especially during winter with low humidity).
Another possible example is workers initially thought to be contaminated
from a leaking sealed radioactive source because radiation (actually
from radon daughters) was detected coming from workers' hands, clothes,
and chairs.

Rick Hansen
Senior Scientist
Counter Terrorism Operations Support Program
National Security Technologies, LLC, for the U.S. Dept of Energy
hansenrg at nv.doe.gov
www.ctosnnsa.org


Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:36:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: ROY HERREN <royherren2005 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Salsman warning
To: Doug Huffman <doug.huffman at wildblue.net>,
	radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu

<snip> James concern brings to mind a rather infamous incident from the
1970's at a Nuclear facility in Pennsylvania. If I remember the near
Urban myth like details of the story correctly, it seems that at the end
of a work shift a worker was found to be contaminated. After much
unsuccessful research over several day as to the work related cause of
the contamination,a survey was taken of the workerupon immediate arrival
at the work site from his home at the beginning of his shift before he
started work. The worker was found to be contaminated from a source
other than work... What was that source of contamination? Was it coal
fly ash? No, it was from naturally occurring Radon gas daughter
products. It seems that the worker had weather proofed his home so well
that naturally occurring Radon gas that was released from the soil under
his house had built up in the house to a much greater extent that would
otherwise naturally occur.
...
Roy Herren