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Tokaimura doses -- a retry of an earlier posting




Apparently the RADSAFE listserver has quality control aspirations.  It seems to
ignore every other message I attempt to post.

Trying again:

PBarring wrote:
------------------------------

> Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 09:21:09 -0500
> From: PBarring@kdhe.state.ks.us
> To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: Gov't to mediate on Tokaimura nuke compensation claim

> WOW!  I thought the US had a corner on the "Stupid Lawsuits" market.  Last
> I heard there was NO significant contamination released from that accident.
> If the product was removed from the shelves 'immediately after the
> accident' I think the company should look to the government or the
> merchants for compensation.  There was no reason why current stock should
> have been removed.  ANI, take notice!

> "My opinions, not the states"

> P
====================

Jim Dukelow comments:

This may be a "stupid lawsuit", although the fermented soybean maker is trying
to recover continuing losses arising from public reaction to their location 10
km from Tokaimura.  The public reaction may not be rational, but it is
apparently real.

Regarding "no significant contamination", I was of the same opinion myself.
However, the 17 August 2000 issue of Nature has a Brief Communication "Neutron
dose estimates from 5-yen coins" by Masuchika Kohno and Yoshinobu Koizumu of the
Department of 
Nuclear Engineering at Kyoto University. 

They collected 5-yen coins (with 37% zinc content) from various 
locations around the Tokaimura facility and measured the Zn-65 resulting 
from neutron irradiation of the coins.  Inferred neutron doses to the 
coins were calculated using the transport codes DOT and MORSE and 
converted to ambient dose equivalents (mSv) of 220mSv at 100 meters, 6 
mSv at 350 meters, and 1.8 mSv at 550m. 

Now, I'm not so sure that doses and contamination were trivial.

Best regards.

Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov

These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and or approved by my 
management or by the U.S. Department of Energy. 


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