Re: Nine Romanian Workers Exposed to High/Co-60

["Cristian S. Nicolau" <cnicolau@NBNET.NB.CA>]

Hi all,



That was a really well kept secret (Romanian authorities were aware of

it since July),as I didn't find out about it since today on Radsafe.



I will summarize what happened as I understood from today and tomorrow

articles in the news. The society owning the furnaces sold them to a

private company and this one sold them again to another one without any

mention about the radioactive sources. The last company sold parts of

the furnaces as refractory bricks and scrap metal. They are missing

about 38 Co-60 sources.



Seems like nine workers out of 14 were overexposed, and the article is

mentioning "the radiation level is 60 times more than the yearly maximum

allowed limit, for the public" - classical media ambiguity. In the title

of the same article, " Red Alert - At Calan, radioactivity is 256 times

higher than the normal level"



The incriminated sources are usually around one Curie of Cobalt when

installed in the refractory internal layer of the furnace. A GM tube

will look at the source from outside the furnace and when the source is

gone (melted with the metal) the refractory layer have to be rebuilt. In

the past I encountered metal parts having traces of Co-60, even they

were brand new. 



Nothing spectacular in this story, a lot of reporter type speculations,

probably we will find out that the doses were not as high as believed.

The believed overexposed workers are under medical observation and are

just fine. Concerns were raised about the long term effects. 



I will try to keep you updated should I get more info of scientific

interest. Trying to translate the articles into English will be to long

and not interesting to the list, already overloaded by antis. 



The Greens will build the next nuclear power plants!



Regards,

Cristian S. Nicolau

cnicolau@nbnet.nb.ca

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