RE: Transportation accidents

["Grimm, Lawrence" <LGrimm@ADMIN.UCLA.EDU>]

A few other musings on transportation accidents:

Sandia used to keep a database of all of the transportation accidents
involving radioactive materials.  It was quite detailed and illuminating.
For a while the database was out of favor (budget-wise) and languished here
and there.  I heard that it ended back up at Sandia, and maybe somebody
there knows if it still exists.  Although there have been many accidents
(mostly medical shipments), a perusal of the data makes it clear just how
good a job of safety we do for the transportation of radioactive materials.


The neat thing I find in the DOT regulations for rad material transport is a
common sense application of the risk involved (as oppposed to the EPA's risk
analysis methods).  If you are transporting SNM, you take great pains, but
if you are transporting normal material, the packaging requirements are
relative to the risk of the nuclide and its form.  Remember, there is good
reason that radioactive materials are Class 7 on the DOT list.  Class 1,
explosives, are extremely hazardous to transport.  Class 7 is at the bottom
of the DOT list because the risk is small (have you ever heard of a town
being evacuated because of a radioactive materials transportation accident?)

I have been involved with a number of transportation accidents and moisture
density gauge recoveries.  Only once did it take more than a few minutes to
evaluate the situation, devise a recovery plan, and recover the source.  It
just takes a clear head, a good meter and hopefully the right recovery
tools.  I am not to saying all recoveries are simple, just that most of them
are.   

By the way, the gauges in question come in three flavors: density gauge,
usually with a Cs-137 source; moisture gauge, usually BeAm-241(old ones had
RaBe) of 10, 20 50 or 100 mCi activities; and moisture-density gauges which
are a combination of the two gauges.  Density gauges are typically used in
road construction and research.  Moisture gauges typically are used in
roofing evaluations, road construction and research - particularly
agricultural research.  Moisture density gauges are used in combination of
all of the above.   

Regarding responders to accidents, I had a researcher blow up a 5 mCi C-14
experiment and started a fire in the lab.  The fire department and our
campus police handled it beautifully.  Why?  Becasuse once a year I gave
each group a one hour how-to-respond training session.  It paid off.  There
was no hesitation on their part. If only the hospital (where they took the
injured researcher) health physicist had trained the emergency room
personnel.... 

My best to all

Larry Grimm
	UCLA Radiation Safety Division
*	On Campus: CHS A6-060 MS 957061
*	Off Campus: UCLA Radiation Safety Div, 2195 West Medical
	Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1764
*	lgrimm@admin.ucla.edu   Phone:310/206-0712   Fax 310/794-5825
*	If this email is not RSD business, the opinions are mine, not
	UCLA's.
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