[ RadSafe ] Long lived radionuclides, groundwater mobility

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Hey Radsafe and Jerry Cohen,
 
     From:   _jpreisig at aol.com_ (mailto:jpreisig at aol.com)     .
 
     I guess my original post dealt a bit about the  source term I (and 
Jeanette Eng) set up for
Low Level Radioactive Waste for NJ waste generators in about 1989.   The 
mobile radionuclides
listed (except Np-237???) were in this source term in some appreciable  
activities.  Most of the other
Radionuclides in this source term (NJ) do not travel much or at all via the 
 groundwater
flow/transport pathway.  Because they travel via groundwater, folks  like 
the EPA might be
interested in offsite dose equivalent rates from these mobile  
radionuclides.
 
    Things like Co-60 etc. do not travel much via the  groundwater pathway, 
especially in the planned
100 year lifetime of an New Jersey LLRW facility.  I should note here  that 
this LLRW facility was
not built in New Jersey, and I think NJ still sends its LLRW to South  
Carolina...
 
     Me, myself, I'm not so bothered by ingestion doses  from mobile 
radionuclides, especially if
they are long lived.  I expect even someone living at the  
fenceline/offsite boundary of such a storage
facility might not even draw their drinking water from a water well at the  
boundary.
 
     Funny, I did neutron spectrometry at Brookhaven  Lab (not groundwater 
modelling), but people at
the southern boundary of Brookhaven National Lab did draw their drinking  
water from water wells
at the south boundary.  Thus the tritium from the BNL HFBR reactor  fuel 
storage pool did make 
its way into their drinking water.  The situation is being remediated  now. 
 This all cost some BNL
Nuclear Engineers (and other scientists) their jobs.  Ultimately the  BNL 
HFBR (the High Flux
Beam Reactor and BMRR (Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor) were  closed.  
Shoreham
in Long Island was closed earlier.
 
     Be good...
 
 
     Regards,   Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig,  PhD