Re: dose limits for members of the public

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 2/14/02 8:45:25 PM Mountain Standard Time, AndrewsJP@AOL.COM writes:



> Here is another thought for Ruth W.  and her transportation analyses of risk.  I note that there is not much mention of the error bars associated with this kind of analysis and it can be done with current software.  Ruth, is that being done routinely with your analyses?  Do you assign a distribution and range of values for the error term of values that you use in these calculations and determine the probable distribution of results?  If you do that, at what level of error distribution do you say "We just don't know!" 

I have argued repeatedly for the use of error bands.  There is a utility with the program that allows distribution of many parameters and presents the resulting doses as  complementary cumulative distribution functions (CCDFs).  the problem is that for many parameters (e.g., actual external dose rate) we don't know what the distribution is, or what the uncertainty is.  Also, our sponsor generally wants the "worst case" -- "most conservative" -- results, so that's what we calculate.


Like so many things, this approach is driven by the anti-nukes.  Moreover, if we were to say "we don't know" I can see the anti-nuke response now "You mean you don't know what you are doing?"  etc. etc.  



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com