Re: DOE beat goes on...

["ruth_weiner" <ruth_weiner@email.msn.com>]

It seems to me that the hazards workers would be exposed to in cleaning out
the 48X and 48Y UF6 transport cylinders would be a chemical hazard rather
than a radiological one.  The uranium in even enriched U is mostly U-238.
On the other hand, the chemical hazard from UF6 is severe -- from inhalation
of HF and UO2F2, both of which are extremely corrosive.  I doubt these
workers would be (have been) working without skin and respiratory
protection.  Perhaps they are talking about cleaning transport containers of
yellowcake, which is essentially uranium oxide, but even with yellowcake the
hazards from dust inhalation would probably exceed any radiological hazard.

Just my opinion, though.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:27 AM
Subject: DOE beat goes on...


>...led by Physicians for Social Responsibility campaigner.
>
>Some indication of internal questioning; but setting up to leave the
incoming
>administration in an untenable position.
>
>Regards, Jim
>muckerheide@mediaone.net
>========================
>
>Plant's radiation dwarfed limits
>  Up to 400 Paducah workers got doses 20 times current cutoff
>
>  By JAMES MALONE, The Courier-Journal
>
>   A C-J in-depth look: The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
>
>
>  PADUCAH, Ky. -- As many as 400 former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
>workers received an annual radiation dose up to 20 times the limit now
>considered safe, a Department of Energy report said.
>
>  Assistant Energy Secretary David Michaels called the 180-page report
>released yesterday a "groundbreaking study" that has "important
implications
>for the future -- for workers to get compensation."
>
>  President Clinton issued an order last month setting up a program to
>compensate workers with job-related illnesses at the Paducah plant and
similar
>government facilities where uranium was enriched for use in nuclear
weapons.
>
>  The Energy Department report did not identify exposed workers, nor did it
>suggest that the government intends to track down those at greatest risk to
>offer medical testing. Such tracking "isn't planned at the moment,"
Michaels
>said.
>
>  However, the department will discuss the report at a public meeting Feb.
1
>in Paducah. Michaels said he hopes publicity about the findings and the
public
>meeting will encourage former workers to step forward.
>
>  The report's researchers estimated that up to 4,000 workers performed
duties
>between 1952 and 1985 in plant areas where they could have received high
>radiation exposure. One in 10 received doses "that approached or exceeded"
>regulatory limits, the report said, and many more workers went untested
>because managers did not think it necessary.
>
>  Based on an analysis of workplace air, the report's authors determined
that
>some workers in the plant's riskiest jobs could have been exposed from 7
rem
>to nearly 100 rem of radiation a year. The current Energy Department limit
for
>safe exposure for nuclear workers is 5 rem a year. A rem is a measure of
>radiation biological damage.
>
>  The report said workers at greatest risk would have been in one of three
>plant buildings, including a decontamination and cleaning building and a
>metals recovery building. It said maintenance workers and operators of
>uranium-processing equipment also showed evidence of high exposure, based
on
>urinalysis records.
>
>  Workers in the decontamination and cleaning building "were possibly
exposed
>to large quantities of radioactive materials in the form of aerosols," the
>report said. It also said the potential for radiological exposure was high
in
>jobs to clean residue out of large metal casks used to ship uranium.
>
>  The conclusions were based in part on recently discovered results of
>airborne dust monitors in plant work areas.
>
>  William McMurry, a Louisville attorney in a $10 billion lawsuit brought
on
>behalf of workers against former plant contractors, said the report
"certainly
>does verify what we have believed and what we have uncovered." He said the
>report "is consistent with, and compatible with, air filtration information
we
>have already received and have an opportunity to go through."
>
>  Excessive radiation exposure can cause leukemia and cancers of internal
>organs, notably the kidneys and lungs. Records show the Energy Department
was
>tracking leukemia and lymphoma cases at the plant in the mid-1980s.
>
>  The yearlong exposure assessment project, conducted with help from the
Paper
>Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers International union and
>researchers at the University of Utah, examined records at the
>uranium-enrichment plant to see what jobs held the most risk and what the
>exposure to workers may have been.
>
>  The report, coming amid numerous lawsuits alleging that Paducah workers
were
>harmed by unknowing exposure to radiation, concluded that some exposure was
>either under-reported or missed. "It is likely that some or perhaps many
>worker radiation doses are not in the record," the report said.
>
>  But the report also cautioned that its focus on "work locations" means
that
>"the data presented should not be used to infer exposures that may have
>occurred to individuals."
>
>  Last fall, officials from the Energy Department's operations office in
Oak
>Ridge, Tenn., sharply criticized a draft version of the report, saying it
>could lead to "unfair conclusions" and "confuse (a) layperson."
>
>  But the final report largely supported the draft. In one change, the
final
>report "recommended" a further study to compare radiation-exposure database
>records at the plant to its paper files. The draft had said the comparison
>would be conducted.
>
>  An Energy Department spokesman said the change was made to leave the
>decision to the incoming Bush administration.
>
>  Mark Griffon, a health physicist who worked on the study, said it's
>important for the new administration to verify the data. Griffon said the
>study showed for the first time a "significant potential exposure for
>thorium," a radioactive metallic chemical, and established doses that
workers
>received for neptunium and plutonium, two other radioactive metallic
>chemicals.
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