At the risk of clogging the bandwith, I've pasted a followup story from "Newsday." Please note the following excerpt:
" Lab officials said that most likely the deer jumped a fence
into a radioactive area
they are in the process of cleaning up."
i.e., it's BNL, not just me that considers it likely that the Cs-137
level in the deer is due to BNL operations.
Also, please note that another story confirms that the level found
is 21 pCi/g of Cs-137. Also note that 192 deer have
been tested since 1992, and that the highest previous level is 11 pCi/g.
I think that it is reasonable to conclude that the 21
pCi/g is statistically significant. While another source of this
contamination cannot yet be ruled out, I think that a reasonable
"working hypothesis" is that the contamination is due to BNL operations.
I'm NOT saying that BNL employees are bad people. I DO applaud
the Laboratory for its timely and effective communication
of this event. Nevertheless, I'll stand by my conclusion, until
shown otherwise, that this indicates a serious programmatic
failure.
The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.
Let's look at the real problem, for a change.
Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com
Deer With High Radiation Level Found at
BNL
By Ann Givens
STAFF WRITER
February 17, 2002
A 2-year-old deer found on the Brookhaven National
Laboratory's campus had more than twice as much
radiation in its body as any deer the lab has tested.
This raises concerns for lab officials, who thought they
had either fenced off or cleaned up most of the site's
radioactive material.
Lab officials announced the news to the Community
Advisory Council at its regular meeting Thursday, the
same day they obtained the test results. Lab officials
said they are investigating whether there is a radiation
"hot spot" on their property that they don't know about,
or if the deer may have wandered into a fenced-off area
where there was known radiation.
The lab has conducted an intensive cleanup since
1997, when a radioactive tritium leak and other
contamination was discovered at the facility.
Lab officials said that most likely the deer jumped a fence into a radioactive
area
they are in the process of cleaning up.
"We're checking all avenues, but I'm pretty confident that this is coming
from
somewhere that we already know about," said Tim Green, a natural resource
manager at the lab.
The deer, which lab officials said had been hit by a car, was tested last
week.
Lab officials routinely test deer that die on the property. Of the 120
deer the lab
has tested since 1992, none has had more than 11 picocuries of radiation
from
the chemical cesium in its system. The deer tested last week had 21 picocuries
of radiation from cesium in its system.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.