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Re: Uranium, radium in Groundwater



Franz, et al ...

I know you said to take this to your private e-mail, but I thought the RADSAFE community at large might be interested ...

Most definitely these elevated radionuclide concentrations can be related to geologic formations ... we've run into a few similar situations. Many years ago, an EPA employee here in the Atlanta (Georgia) area participated in a home radon study and got back a result on the order of 50 pCi/l Rn-222 in air ... not horrendous, but somewhat unexpected. My staff and I, along with some rad folks from EPA, went up to his house ... and boy, did WE ever have an interesting find ... the radiation level about 1 meter from his water heater was around 2-3 mR/hr ... about 100 uR/hr above his toilet ... similar levels anywhere there was water.

The Piedmont in Georgia (as is much of the southeast USA) is underlain with igneous formations ... part of which are manifested as granite domes (such as Stone Mountain) ... it's pretty difficult to get groundwater ... which is why most municipal water supplies in the Piedmont are surface-water fed ... and about the only way you can get a productive well is to drill into a fault or similar formation where groundwater flows freely. Apparently, that's what happened here ... and unfortunately, it appears that radionuclide concentrations in these formations are extremely elevated ... for example, Rn-222 level in his water was 789,000 pCi/l ... U level was on the order of a thousand or so pCi/l ... Ra-226 at least several hundred (this was in the late 1980's ... and I can't remember the specifics except for the Rn-222 value).

I can't speak to the analytical procedures in the sample cited ... but the total uranium and Ra-226 values, albeit extraordinarily high, are not out of line with what we've seen previously in private wells. In defense of whatever regulatory agency might be involved here, state governments normally only have responsibility for "public" or "commercial" drinking water supplies ... either government owned, or privately owned and serving a certain number of customers (I believe it's 25 customers or more, or 15 service connections or more). This would normally fall into the jurisdiction of a county health department ... which normall would not have any radiological health expertise. There are no requirements for sampling and analysis for radioactive materials in private wells, which just complicates matters.

Just my $0.02 worth ...


Jim Hardeman, Manager
Environmental Radiation Program
Environmental Protection Division
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
4244 International Parkway, Suite 114
Atlanta, GA 30354
(404) 362-2675  fax: (404) 362-2653
Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us

>>> franz.schoenhofer@chello.at 1/25/2001 16:51:13 >>>
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-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Henry Wood <thenry@viperlink.net>
An: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Datum: Donnerstag, 25. Jänner 2001 22:04
Betreff: Uranium, radium in Groundwater


>A friend recently presented me some data from a private drinking water well
>(southeastern USA) that showed the following:
>
>total uranium =     1490 ug/L
>U-233/234 =     711 pCi/L
>U-235/236 =     21.7 pCi/L
>U-238        =  499 pCi/L
>Radium-226 = 418 pCi/L
>
>Obviously, these level exceed MCLs / risk-based activities.
>My question: Is there any way possible these activities are related to a
>geologic formation?


These values are horrifying!!!! Are you sure that this really refers to
drinking water from a private well? I cannot believe it. It looks much more
like untreated waste water from uranium mining.
What makes me even more suspicious is that
- a sum of U-233 and U-234 is given. I do not know of any analytical method
to yield the sum of these two radionuclides and anyway U-233 could only be
present in negligible amounts, but I am far from knowing everything. U-234
is usually present in approximately the same activity concentration as
U-238, but of course disequilibrium occurs frequently.
- U-236 is only produced by neutron capture of U-235, which means that it
can only be produced in a nuclear reactor and is otherwise not present on
earth. Again I do not know any analytical method which would yield the sum
of these two radionuclides and again I emphasize that I do not know
everything.
- I do not know by heart the activity concentration ratio of U-235 and
U-238, but I have a strong feeling that the ratio given in these results
does not correspond to the 0.7 % U-235 based on weight.
- The Ra-226 concentration claimed would be a nightmare and it is absolutely
unbelievable. It would be more than 100 fold the maximum permissible limits
valid in most countries and anyway in the European Union.
- I miss values for the daughter products of radium-226, starting from
radon, which is usually higher by several orders of magnitude than the
Ra-226 activity concentrations and also for Pb-210 and Po-210 which are of
similar toxicity like Ra-226 and Ra-228. They would be of much radiation
protection concern.

In Europe there are drinking water supplies with alarming levels of
naturally occuring radionuclides in Sweden and especially Finland, but they
are lower by orders of magnitude than the values you cited.

Since I used to work a lot with natural radioactivity in drinking water, I
would appreciate if you could keep me informed about this case and what is
behind it. Please take it to my private e-mail-address.

Franz

l
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