Re: TFP -Sr-90 in the environment-Minor Correction on airborne releases point

[RadiumProj@cs.com]

In a message dated 8/13/00 7:45:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Holloway3@aol.com writes:

> To approach the problem another way, Sr-90 is not volatile, which suggests 
>  that the only way it can enter the environment from a nuclear plant is 
>  through some liquid effluent
=========
Radsafe:

Minor point of correction to the above point.  Nuclear plants can and often 
do have trivial measurable releases of airborne Sr-90. While the fission 
yield of  Cs-137/Sr-90 is about 1.6,  the transfer which occurs from fuel 
pellet, to coolant,  etc., etc., to various potential release pathways 
including airborne selectively cuts down on Sr-90 vs. Cs-137 every step of 
the way due to well studied physical & chemical mechanisms. Accordingly, 
there is a ratio of Cs-137 to Sr-90 in airborne effluents is >>1.6, so if a 
plant does not show large airborne releases of Cs-137 there is no potential 
for significant Sr-90 releases. In actuality, Sr-90 and the much  more 
prevalent Cs-137 in any total of long-airborne particulates from a nuclear 
plant typically totals only a few microcuries at most [often at a summation 
of less than values for stack filters of measured releases] to at most a few 
millicuries per year per my recollection [any current data input from 
Radsafers??]. This total maximum airborne release of Sr-90 and Cs-137  is 
absolutely trivial compared to the residual Cs-137 weapons test fallout 
levels in the mid-lattitudes which averaged about, as I recall, perhaps 80 
mCi/km^2  [with Sr-90 about 50 mCi/km^2]in 1968 per the DOE Environmental 
Measurements Lab data.

 Accordingly, the releases of Sr-90 and Cs-137 from any one nuclear plant or 
[all of them combined if they were crammed into one area] would not be enough 
to maintain the pre-existing weapons test fallout inventory in the general 
environment around a single plant which is decaying with a half life of about 
30 years, thus losing about 1 to 2 mCi/km^2  per year of Sr-90 and Cs-137 
respectively. If the releases from a nuclear facility are too low to even 
keep the Sr-90 inventory in the environment around any nuclear facility from 
prior open air bomb test from declining, how could anyone believe that 
whatever Sr-90 is measured in some politically motivated study like the Tooth 
Fairy Project, is due to releases only from a nuclear facility? 

The  TFP study and its proponents are clearly guilty of scientific fraud in 
interpreting whatever data they are gathering and in selectively releasing it 
even before their "study" is completed. This "study" is only a mechanism to 
make claims to support the conclusions they had made about plant impacts even 
before the study was begun.  This entire study is little more that a PR stunt 
and hopefully the media will eventually realize how they are being conned and 
seduced by a pretty STAR spokesperson in the person of Christie Brinkley, et. 
al. To paraphrase an old and admittedly not PC joke:  "Beauty is only skin 
deep, but a fraudulent claim of a Sr-90 problem does not go clear to the 
bone."

The claims of the TFP and STAR are not based in good science but crude public 
relations, and an ultimate contempt for the public.  In saner times, when 
claims of harm are based on selective use and distortion of data and 
statements that deviate so greatly from known facts, it can be recognized by 
an informed listener and recognized as propaganda or even lies. 
Unfortunately, the popular media hasn't learned to tell the difference 
between a distorted claim, a half-truth, or clear manipulation of scientific 
data under the guise of a group like the TFP's mock concern for public health.

Regards,

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project
172 Old Orchard Way
Warren, VT 05674

  Phone: (802) 496-3356 
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