[ RadSafe ] Chernobyl's radioactive trees and the forest fire risk - Towe...

Tue Jul 10 18:53:17 CDT 2012

Dear Radsafe:

     All these stories of reactors coming up out of  their (more???) 
shielded areas and being used
to irradiate trees are all quite interesting..  Were the reactors  giving 
off more than 10 mrem per hour
close in???  Sounds like the good old days of health physics --- back  in 
the day.

     In those days there were at least 2 Charlie's  running around BNL 
Health Physics.
One was fairly thin (a fan of Elvis???) and an early on member of the  
Health Physics Society.
I learned a fair amount of Health Physics from him and his  technicians.

     The other Charlie was heavier (in mass) and I  believe was once 
president of the Health Physics
Society.  Many of you probably remember him.

      Back in the day, the one technician/HP used  to kid that if you 
weren't getting 5 rad/rem a day,
you weren't doing the job right.  Thank goodness for the teletector  
detector.  I'm sure the annual
administrative Level now at BNL is still somewhere in the vicinity of 1250  
mrem per year.  Yeah, I'm
still stuck on those old rad units.

      Funny, the USA fairly recently had a  president who couldn't 
pronounce nuclear correctly.
It always came out Nucular???!!!!  Maybe he had a learning  disability???  
The guy was somewhat educated
at Yale.  His Dad was a president also --- a CIA kind of guy with oil  
industry involvement.
All very interesting.

MWD is Measurement While Drilling.
During the elected-time of the first guy, the USA economy suffered and many 
 100 year old 
businesses (including some well-known national chain stores) closed.   Now 
this gentleman, or one of
his Rep_____can cronies also had trouble with the term MWD  --- a  
Schlumberger term for
doing downhole measurements while actually drilling an oil well (a  
Schlumberger photomultiplier tube
is by its design able to work well at high temperatures and pressures, with 
 some vibration!!!).
He thought MWD was WMD, the not-so-popular Weapons of Mass  Destruction.  
Oh my, what 
confusion.  I used to be a Rep____can but have since dropped out of  the 
Middle Class????

      MWD is not WMD!!!!  And from what I am  hearing lately, there never 
were any WMD's in the
country the USA invaded.???!!!!  NOT GOOD!!!   Or as another  Health 
Physics President I know/knew ---
BAD, BAD, BAD!!!!  (He's famous for being from Hector,  Minnesota).   He 
likes Ted Nugent...

     Anyway, have a good week,

     Regards,   Joe Preisig

In a message dated 7/9/2012 9:55:01 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
jjshonka at shonka.com writes:

The  DOSAR Reactor (dosimetry applications research reactor) at ORNL was a
fast  pulsed reactor used for the ICHIBAN studies in support of the  
japanese
dosimetry.  Many of you may have participated in the annual  accident
dosimetry intercomparisons held for a week during each  summer.  During the
operational period, trees with the largest  chromosomal volumes were
preferentially killed (if you can kill a  tree?).  The forest around the
reactor building had different species  of trees as a function of radius.
As I recall, the pines were most  affected.

Joe Shonka

On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 9:10 PM, K. L.  McMahan <kb60127 at comcast.net> wrote:

> The reactor you  describe was almost surely the Tower Shielding Facility 
at
> Oak Ridge  National Laboratory. A good summary description complete with
> photos  and drawings of this impressive bit of history can be found at 
this
>  link:
>  http://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub20808.pdf
>
>  Others will have to speak of the effect of the hoisted, operating  
reactor
> on
> pine trees (or perhaps oak trees, since this is,  after all, Oak Ridge). I
> can only say trees grow pretty well around  there now.
>
> Kim McMahan, CHP
> Oak Ridge,  TN
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:  radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>  [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Lawrence  
Jacobi
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 4:38 PM
> To:  radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl's  radioactive trees and the forest fire 
risk
>
> According to the  story below, Professore Sergiy Zibtsev, from the 
Forestry
> Institute at  the Kiev University of Life Sciences, is evaluating the
> potential for  a fire in the pine forest around Chernobyl to spread major
> amounts of  radioactivity to offsite areas, including the Ukraine and
>  Western
> Europe.  While my intuition tells me that will not be the  case, I was
> wondering if anyone who is more experienced than me in  terrestrial
> radiation
> ecology has more insight or a different  opinion.
>
> I remember reading about the "red forest" around  Chernobyl caused by the
> death of the existing pine trees, which I  attributed to the massive doses
> received by the forest 25 years ago;  but, not necessarily attributable to
> ongoing irradiation from  contamination.  I also remember reading about an
> experimental  reactor in the USA that was purposelly allowed to go 
critical
> while  suspended in air, leading to the death of nearby pine trees.   Does
> anyone remember the name of that facility?
>
>  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18721292
>  _______________________________________________
> You are currently  subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list
>
> Before posting a  message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood 
the
> RadSafe  rules. These can be found at:
>  http://health.phys.iit.edu/radsaferules.html
>
> For information  on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings
> visit:
>  http://health.phys.iit.edu
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
> You are currently  subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list
>
> Before posting a  message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood
> the RadSafe  rules. These can be found at:
>  http://health.phys.iit.edu/radsaferules.html
>
> For information  on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings
> visit:  http://health.phys.iit.edu
>
_______________________________________________
You  are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list

Before posting a  message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood 
the RadSafe rules.  These can be found at: 
http://health.phys.iit.edu/radsaferules.html

For  information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings 
visit:  http://health.phys.iit.edu