Re: Radioactive Minerals Scare

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Cehn@aol.com <Cehn@aol.com>
An: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Datum: Sonntag, 18. Februar 2001 04:13
Betreff: Radioactive Minerals Scare


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>Yikes!  The British court is outlawing radioactive minerals.  Hope the
>courthouse isn't made of granite!   I had an experience with a show & tell
in
>my daughter's school.  I had them go over their mineral collection with a
GM,
>and then explained what they found.  That night, one of the mothers called
me
>to ask why did I have URANIUM (ohmagod!) in the classroom.  I was able to
>calm her down, but the amazing thing is this woman is a PhD epidemiologist
at
>the University of California.  Is there any hope at all?

If I were a politician I would answer your question without hesitation with
a wholehearted, strong and clear "Maybe, maybe not".....

Many of us have experienced such situations. I was asked by the physics
teacher of my younger son, whether I could have a look at the physics
collection in the school, because obviously radioactive material was
present. Yes, it was, indeed - a few very weak sources for demonstration
purposes, possibly for a Wilson cloud chamber. The amount of radium as
indicated on the sources was so low, I would not have bothered, if I had
them in my pocket. But thinking of legislation, these sources would have
required a license! I did it the Austrian way: A collegue from a nuclear
research institute visited the school and put all the sources into his
radioactive waste bin. But one thing bothered me - this teacher of physics
was obviously not sure, whether she should be afraid of the sources or not!
She did not know about legislation (and I did not tell her about the
theoretical need of a license, in order not to put stress on her - she was a
very nice young woman......).

Another case was the Viennese Technical Museum. Quite a few years ago I got
to know by chance, that this museum wanted to get rid of radioactive
material, because of fear for potential negative public opinion. I took the
chance to offer my help in locating the radioactive material. I spent a
wonderful half day at the museum, mostly in areas not accessible for the
public, with my contamination monitor, tracind one radioactive item after
the other: pitchblende ores, which were so radioactive, that even I did not
take them with me, thorium ores, especially monazites, used for the
production of incandescent lamps, compounds from the manufacture of rare
earths from the Auer von Welsbach company, obviously still containing
substantial amounts of thorium and other naturally occuring material,
uranium salts manufactured for glass staining at Joachimsthal (nowadays
Jachymov in the Czech republic), everything being kept in wonderful hand
made glass containers. Do not ask me, where this historic material is now
stored, I would not tell you......

In this latter case the fright for radioactive material has probably helped
to keep a treasure from being discarded, bituminized or embedded in
concrete.

By the way, anybody in desperate need of Thorium, refined at the turn of the
century, therefore in equilibrium with Ra-228 should contact me. I think
that I can offer small quantities, which would not violate the rules for
transportation.

Best regards,

Franz


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