Re: Municipal incinerators

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 09:17 22.01.2000 -0600, you wrote:
>I am looking for information on airborne releases from municipal
incinerators, especially NORM and byproducts materials. While I prefer the
results of actual measurements, calculations may be useful. 
>
>Specially, I would like to see the results of burning old smoke detectors
on the Am-241 releases.
>
>Please contact me directly at marvinturkanis@alum.mit.edu

I do not respond to you directly, because the information might be
interesting for other RADSAFERs too. 

In Vienna we have several incinerators for municipial waste. One of it is
also dedicated to burn hazardous waste and the sludge from the main sewage
treatment plant. While no data are available for the emission of these
plants, we have data on the contamination of the sludge in the sewage
treatment plant. In the sewage water and partly in the sludge we can detect
the radionuclides used in nuclear medicine from various iodine isotopes,
Tc-99m, Tl-201 etc. etc. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident found
we of course also fission products and the Cs-137 and Cs-134 from runoff,
because rainwater is drained into the municipial sewage system. The
concentration of these radionuclides is and was several orders of magnitude
lower than the maximum permissible levels for drinking water. Nevertheless
it was for us an interesting experience to test our HPGe detectors and to
"see" some radionuclides. 

During the main period of contamination from Chernobyl (the first week of
May 1986) there was some concern about I-131 emitted from the stack of this
special incineration plant from burning the sludge of the sewage treatment
plant. During a meeting with the town council we calculated a worst case
scenario and found that the maximum contamination of the surrounding to be
expected was much less than the actual one caused by direct fallout. 

There exist other investigations on sewage treatment plants. If you are
interested in it, please contact me. 

Regards,

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html