Re: Norm's comments and Fallout timing

[Norman & Karen Cohen <norco@bellatlantic.net>]

Mr H,

I read your and Jacques emails. I see your point that Soviet testing would have
put much more sr-90 into the environment in the early 1960s. But... wouldn't even
all this additional fallout continue to decay through the 1970s and 80s and 90s
so that baby teeth from the 90s should show very low levels of Sr90?

The info that I got from the TFP shows that from the 1980s on up, sr-90 in teeth
is either level or rising. So where is the extra sr-90 coming from that is
keeping levels even or rising. Shouldn't levels go down as fallout continues to
decay?

I'm not trying to be stubborn or obstinate (ok a little). What am I missing here?

I've 'cc'd to Joe Mangano to see if he has any comments.

thanks
norm

Holloway3@aol.com wrote:

> Norm,
>
> You made the point that Sr-90 in recently collected teeth was similar in
> amount to that found in teeth of the late 1950s. and therefore something of a
> puzzle and perhaps suggestive of reactor emissions.  I don't think my answer
> to that was entirely clear, so I will comment again.  Although I don't have
> any exact figures at hand, Jacques Read agrees with me that a very large
> amount of fallout was created in the Soviet test series in 1961 and 1962.  He
> also makes the point that the fallout that currently exists is essentially
> dominated by that Soviet fallout.  In comments from you and others in the
> Tooth Fairy Project, there is no mention of this important fact.  And it is
> important.  Teeth collected in the late 1950s therefore would not have been
> impacted by this major source of fallout in 1961 and 1962, while teeth
> collected today will be impacted by the Soviet fallout.  If it is true that
> teeth collected today have Sr-90 in amounts not so different from teeth
> collected in the late 1950s, this may not be especially surprising in view of
> the large amounts of fallout that were deposited in the early 1960s.  I have
> seen graphs of the various fission products in air during those years and it
> supports the idea that the Soviet fallout in 1961 and 1962 dwarfed the
> fallout amounts in the 1950s.
>
> To review your comments, you say that because Sr-90 in teeth today is not so
> different from that of the late 1950s,  that this possibly is an indication
> of releases from reactors, because one would expect the levels today to be
> much lower, than in the late 50s due to decay.  But in reaching that
> conclusion, you fail to consider the very large deposits of fallout in the
> early 1960s from the Soviet tests. You need to go back to your friends and
> tell them this line of argument is flawed, as it certainly is flawed.  It is
> flawed because those people giving you the information do not have a good
> grasp of the basic information.  For instance, if the amount of fallout
> created in the 1961 - 1962 Soviet test series was 3 or 4 times that created
> in the 1950s, then that alone could account for the similarity in the
> concentrations of Sr-90 in teeth of the 1950s as compared to teeth collected
> today.  It happens many times that the arguments of the activists fail on
> very simple facts.  This is one of those times, in my opinion.
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