Re[2]: 60 Minutes story on Savannah River Laboratory

[steve.rima@DOEGJPO.COM (Steven Rima)]

     Sandy et al,
     
     You are correct in how this is assessed in the DOE world _today_. 10 
     CFR 20 and 10 CFR 835 (rad prot for DOE) are essentially the same. 
     However, the person in question received the intake in 1978, well 
     before either the NRC or DOE adopted committed (effective) dose limits 
     for intakes. Intakes were measured in body and/or organ burdens back 
     then, without calculating the dose to the worker.
     
     I watched the show, and this appears to be another case of looking at 
     something that happened 20+ years ago and evaluating it against the 
     legal standards of today. As has been noted on RADSAFE many times 
     before, lots of things that may have been legal in the past would not 
     be so today, but the comparison is not fair or valid.
     
     Steven D. Rima, CHP, CSP
     Manager, Health Physics and Industrial Hygiene
     MACTEC-ERS, LLC
     steve.rima@doegjpo.com


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: 60 Minutes story on Savannah River Laboratory
Author:  "Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net> at Internet
Date:    1/24/00 10:49 AM


> There were claims of plutonium in the body and urine of at least one worker, 
> but no quantitative numbers or units were given.
     
The only quantification stated was that the one individual received a 
"lifetime" limit based on his internal uptake of plutonium. Then the 
story said that the individual was put back to work in the plutonium 
cell. This doesn't make sense. If the individual received a lifetime 
burden, I expect that he wouldn't be out back to work. Under NRC 
regulations, an individual who receives an internal dose, the 50 year 
committed dose is assumed to take place in the year it was received. 
After the year passes, the individual is once again, permitted to 
receive radiation exposure as an occupational worker. How is this 
treated by DOE?
     
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