RE: Mururoa plutonium [was The Kitchen Table AtomBomb...review]

["Bud Yard" <Bud.Yard@state.tn.us>]

Franz and Jaro,



I am returning to the group after a brief absence and I have apparently missed a good deal of the current discussion. Where (on line preferably) may I find the reports you are referring to and related information?



Thanks,



Bud Yard  



>>> "Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA> 06/13/02 03:38PM >>>

Thanks very much Franz -- this is one for my reference files.



.....but as I recall from reading the McEwan et-al report, the Pu

contamination was very much localized at one small part of the atoll, where

the "safety test" was performed -- correct ? .....in other words, the high

explosives were unable to spread the Pu very far & wide -- a point relevant

to the present discussion on dirty bombs, etc.



I would appreciate if you could clarify this for all of us.



Thanks in advance.



Jaro 





-----Original Message-----

From: Franz Schoenhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT] 

Sent: Wednesday June 12, 2002 3:54 PM

To: AndrewsJP@AOL.COM; newsonline.errors@bbc.co.uk 

Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu 

Subject: Re: The Kitchen Table Atom Bomb...review



<SNIP>

France has done it at Mururoa and of this I know quite well, because one of

the most important tasks of my "Terrestrial Group" in the framework of the

International Mururoa Study, conducted by the IAEA, was to check the areas

for contamination, where the atmospheric safety tests had been conducted. I

have to admit, that those areas are uninhabitable, so the decontamination

criteria have not been so strict as they probably would be for Manhattan,

but we could show, that there was practically no possibility for people

visiting those areas to incorporate enough plutonium to suffer from it: The

large particles with enough plutonium in them could not be resuspended and

therefore not inhaled. The smalls which might get airborne contained to

little plutonium, so no harm was to be expected from inhalation. So I was

twice in an area with "a lot" of plutonium on the ground without any

protective clothing - except for plastic overshoes in order not to

contaminate the laboratory(!) and I have not suffered any illness, nor have

the friends in my group. Therefore not even the dispersal of some dozens of

gramms of plutonium (where to get them from?) would in my opinion not do any

harm, at least not in the long term. Gamma-emitters like Cs-137 or Co-60

would do even less.



Best regards,



Franz





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