[ RadSafe ] H-3 Vaporization at Oak Ridge -was: RE: Claim that Film exposes ?regulatory capture? ofUSA?s NRC

Tue Jan 31 09:34:06 CST 2012

All,

Releasing tritium is problematic. Most tritium is chemically combined with oxygen. Tritiated water cannot be decontaminated because it is chemically identical to water. It is water. So what to do? 

For all of those folks who read RADSAFE and are not health physicists or radiation scientists, the regulations and release limits applicable to tritium are designed to minimize the risk to the public from the health effects of the tritium and or tritiated water. Dilution is the only solution for tritiated water. Gaseous tritium will eventually combine with oxygen to form water.

Release of tritiated water to the oceans (i. e. eventually the rivers flow to the ocean) is preferable because of the oceans tremendous volume. There is more naturally occurring tritium in Earth's oceans than all of the 'artificially" produced tritium releases on Earth combined. You will see that if you do the math.

Let's not get carried away with this thread on RADSAFE.

Regards,
John E. Dixon, CHP

-----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 5:16 PM
To: SAFarber at optonline.net; The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
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

-----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)
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