No subject

of the activity.  The papers that I mentioned earlier contain a graphic
showing that relation.  We considered using this material as well as the
wood for the biomass power concept.  The ash would be encapsulated and
placed in a shallow repository.

The area is prone to forest fire since it is no longer a commercial forest.
The fires redistribute the R/Ns, burning the humic-rich soils since they
have about the same caloric value as the forest wood.  These fires would
regularly increase the background radiation in Minsk by 10-fold.

Perhaps part of criteria for use of land in "The Zone" is not only the
background radiation but the active processes that remobilize and
concentrate radionuclides that potentially contribute to internal dose.  The
farmers of the area still rely heavily on potash for their gardens from
their cooking and heating fires (yes, the area is very rustic!). This
concentrates the R/Ns making them available for their garden vegetables.
When I close my eyes and think about the beautiful Pripyat Forest in the
Gomel Province, I can see an old man walking through the forest picking
mushrooms.  The caps hyper-concentrate the Cs & Sr and have been considered
as a remediation strategy.

One of the pieces of advice around the zone was to avoid the mushrooms,
berries & milk produced there.  This would reduce the total dose (internal &
external) by 90%.  So, it is certainly possible to return there... However,
I would tend to avoid the forest delicacies. 

Dan ii

--
Dan W McCarn, Geologist
108 Sherwood Blvd
Los Alamos, NM 87544-3425
+1-505-672-2014 (Home - New Mexico)
+1-505-670-8123 (Mobile - New Mexico)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email) HotGreenChile at gmail dot com


-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Karen Street
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 20:03
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] evacuation: where and how long?

Thanks all. 

1 mSv/year, and the Ukraine didn't object????

According to
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/default.aspx?id=498&terms=chernobyl%20excl
usion%20zone 

in only 0.5 sq km of the 4300 sq km exclusion zone does radioactivity exceed
the normal background (2.5 mSv) by more than 50%.

This does not make sense to me. Why would people agree to protecting us
against such a meaningless level of danger?

On Nov 21, 2011, at 6:15 PM, Andrew McEwan wrote:

> Part of the problem is the ICRP advocacy of ALARA, the confusion between
> constraints for planned exposures and reference levels for existing
> exposures, and the guidance in ICRP Publication 111 (International
> Commission on Radiological Protection. 2009 Application of the
commission's
> recommendations to the protection of people living in long-term
contaminated
> areas after a nuclear accident or a radiation emergency ICRP Publication
> 111; Ann. ICRP 39 (3) (Amsterdam: Elsevier))
> that exposures should be reduced where possible to below 1 mSv/year.
Clearly
> where exposures cannot reasonably be reduced to what are perceived as
'safe'
> levels, and these levels are set by 'experts', there is a high degree of
> unnecessary anxiety.
> 
> Some of the problems with the guidance of ICRP 111 and ICRP 103 with
regard
> to setting reference levels are discussed in a just published paper in the
> Journal of Radiological Protection (Is ICRP guidance on the use of
reference
> levels consistent?)
> 
> stacks.iop.org/JRP/31/431
> 
> Andrew McEwan

--
Best wishes, 
Karen Street
Friends Energy Project
blog http://pathsoflight.us/musing/index.php

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