[ RadSafe ] A non-solution for a non-problem

Tue Jan 31 01:26:10 CST 2012

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 8:18 AM AST Jerry Cohen wrote:

>Bill
>OK, so  distrust is the problem, rather than a genuine health threat. Now that 
>Long Island groundwater has been shipped to Tennessee. Does the public now have 
>confidence in BNL, DOE, or nuclear energy in general. Just what did we get for 
>the tax money spent?  Jerry
>

A stern reminder to the decision makers in the nuclear industry that when an organization agrees on something subject to public protest, they better fulfill the promise.

BNL could have saved a lot more of the tax money, and save themselves the negative PR by implementing the agreed monitoring systems, even if it was not necessary from health perspective.

Ahmad

>________________________________
>From: William Lipton <doctorbill34 at gmail.com>
>To: Jerry Cohen <jjcohen at prodigy.net>; The International Radiation Protection 
>(Health Physics) Mailing List <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
>Sent: Mon, January 30, 2012 7:58:23 PM
>Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] A non-solution for a non-problem
>
>I am more disturbed by the fact that BNL management allowed the fuel pool
>of the High Flux Beam Reactor to leak into the aquifer for as long as 12
>years before discovery.   Despite promising to install monitoring wells in
>1994, Brookhaven management delayed the installations.  Later monitoring
>showed tritium levels up to 32 times federal drinking water standards.
>
>As the GAO 
>Report<http://www.powerreactorrp.com/References/Groundwater/GAO_Brookhaven.pdf>states:
>
>"Brookhaven's delay in installing the monitoring wells raised serious
>concerns in the Long Island community about
>(1) the laboratory's abiity to take seriously its responsibilities for the
>environment and for human health and safety and (2) DOE's competence as an
>overseer of the laboratory's activities."
>
>While shipment of the water for disposal was not technically necessary, I
>don't blame the population and elected officials for their distrust of this
>explanation, since previous DOE assurances of adequate monitoring were
>wrong.
>
>Bill Lipton
>It's not about dose, it's about trust.
>
>
>On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Jerry Cohen <jjc105 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Previously, on radsafe, the BNL tritium problem was discussed and, as I
>> recall,
>> it was shown that in no way was it a public health problem. In fact, there
>> is no
>> way that release of tritium to the environment could, in general, cause a
>> significant health problem . Given this situation, I am disturbed that so
>> much
>> of my tax money has been squandered on a project that is little more than
>> "show
>> business". Given the technological ignorance of the news media, couldn't
>> the DOE
>> find a much cheaper way to assuage the concerns of a technologically
>> ignorant
>> public than shipping water to Oak Ridge?
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "Brennan, Mike  (DOH)" <Mike.Brennan at DOH.WA.GOV>
>> To: SAFarber at optonline.net; The International Radiation Protection (Health
>> Physics) Mailing List <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
>> Sent: Mon, January 30, 2012 2:16:23 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] H-3 Vaporization at Oak Ridge -was: RE: Claim
>> that Film
>> exposes ?regulatory capture? ofUSA?s NRC
>>
>> Even worse, Brookhaven is within spitting distance of the sea (OK, maybe
>> a really high powered spit, but still).  Dumping the "tritium
>> contaminated ground water" into the ocean has equal risks of noticeably
>> increasing the tritium concentration and decreasing the ocean's
>> salinity.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Stewart Farber
>> Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 1:47 PM
>> To: 'The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing
>> List'
>> Subject: [ RadSafe ] H-3 Vaporization at Oak Ridge -was: RE: Claim that
>> Film exposes ?regulatory capture? ofUSA?s NRC
>>
>> I have no idea of the total volume,  Bq/L and total activity of H-3
>> there
>> was in the water shipped to Oak Ridge for processing and release. Anyone
>> know, since it would help in making the comparison presented below.
>>
>> For reference the water flow at the mouth of the Mississippi is
>> about 17 million/L/sec.
>> http://www.americanrivers.org/library/river-facts/river-facts.html
>>
>> This volume of water for the Mississippi, at the average H-3 activity of
>> surface water in US [ or the world for that matter --very roughly 15
>> Bq/l]
>> will contain about 260 MBq.
>>
>> I posit that the water from Brookhaven,  which was sent to Oak Ridge for
>> processing at a cost of many millions $ without doubt, contained a total
>> H-3
>> activity which was dwarfed by the total H-3 activity flowing down the
>> Mississippi River draining its watershed in only a few seconds.
>>
>> Why should the amount of H-3 equal to that present in a few seconds of
>> water
>> flowing down the Mississippi not be a concern, when that same total
>> amount
>> of H-3 activity in some water from Brookhaven is vaporized and free
>> released
>> to the environment? What a farce.
>>
>> How does our society justify wasting millions in an airborne release of
>> H-3
>> vs. releasing the Brookhaven water at some slow rate into a large river
>> flowing to the sea? The airborne H-3 release at Oak Ridge will
>> eventually
>> come to earth in rainwater, end up as groundwater perhaps, or drain to
>> some
>> river in any case.
>>
>> Sometime in the future someone will write a book "The Decline and Fall
>> of
>> the United States". The absurdity of sending H-3 contaminated water to
>> Oak
>> Ridge to be released to the air after processing by Duratek vs.
>> releasing it
>> to a large river [or simply leaving it in the ground to decay in a few
>> years] will be one of the minor examples of what contributed to the
>> death
>> spiral for the US.
>>
>> Stewart Farber
>> SAFarber at optonline.net
>>
>>
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>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Brennan, Mike
>> (DOH)
>> Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 1:14 PM
>> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Claim that Film exposes ?regulatory capture?
>> ofUSA?s NRC
>>
>> Or pump it out of the ground and ship it to a BWR, to be processed and
>> used as coolant.  Then challenge anyone to find the difference in the
>> final H3 levels between the water from Brookhaven and the water from the
>> regular source.
>>
>> (actually, I agree that the low risk option would have been to leave it
>> in the ground, or if that wasn't acceptable, pump it and dump it into
>> the ocean.)
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Dan McCarn
>> Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2012 9:50 PM
>> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Claim that Film exposes ?regulatory capture?
>> ofUSA?s NRC
>>
>> Fritz Niehaus at the IAEA suggested the same thing - simply release it.
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 10:00 PM, S L Gawarecki
>> <slgawarecki at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> > Do you know what happened to that tritium-contaminated water from
>> > Brookhaven?  It was put in tanker trucks and shipped to Oak Ridge,
>> > Tennessee.  There is was fed into a thermal treatment unit at Duratek
>> at
>> > levels below their air permit limit (and within their license limit)
>> until
>> > it was gone--up in the air.  What sense did that make?  The risk of
>> all
>> > those trucks on the road was probably much greater than the potential
>> > exposure at either site.  Personally, I think it would have been
>> smarter to
>> > have left it in the ground back at Brookhaven to decay in peace.
>> >
>> > Susan Gawarecki
>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
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