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RE: some details on St. Lucie
Mitchell:
I had a good chuckle at your Alaska fisherman statement. I worked on a purse seiner fishing boat one summer in Southeast Alaska. I've also installed 12 million Curies of Cs-137 in an irradiator. I would much, much rather handle the sources again than go back and work as a commercial fisherman. I damn near bit the bullet one time when the net's sinker line caught my foot as we were laying out the net. Fortunately I only lost my hip boot, and didn't go overboard. Commercial fishing is an incredibly dangerous business. I have four life-threatening stories from that ten week period. By comparison, I got no dose from the irradiator installation, despite handling all 200+, 50KCi sources twice.
One's perspective of risk is usually tempered by one's actual risk experiences. Considering my fishing, Viet Nam and the daily Los Angeles I-405 freeway driving experiences, working with radioactive materials is as safe (I believe it is safer because we know so much about it) a thing to do as any thing else I can think of. I may be wrong, but I categorize those who think, "All levels of radiation are risky", into three groups: 1)those with a hidden agenda; 2) those who have never been in truly risky situations; and 3)those looking to blame something/someone for a woe. I can empathize, though not necessarily agree, with the third group and their feelings. The second group is just plain clueless. The first group is interesting because I find them on both sides of the coin.
Larry Grimm, Senior HP
UCLA EH&S/ Radiation Safety Division
* If this email is not RSD business, the opinions are mine, not
UCLA's.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mitchell Davis [mailto:radiation@cox.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 4:27 PM
To: Michael G. Stabin; radsafe
Subject: Re: some details on St. Lucie
I am perplexed by this. I have been involved in nuclear plant work (outside
my 8 yr Navy career) since 1987. This sort of thing happens frequently.
Not that it is supposed to, but it just does. I have been at many plants
that during refueling we "lose containment" to airborne. It happens for
various reasons. Some controllable, others not. The exposures received are
within the applicable regulatory constraints. I certainly understand the
NRC's concern as these were unplanned exposures. Are they serious exposures
which require some type of health issue assessment? Absolutely not!! Do
they require some sort of investigation as to what went wrong and to find a
way to prevent these from happing in the future? Yes but only from a
planning stand point. I do not understand how individuals working in an
environment of radioactivity are expected to receive zero dose. It is going
to happen!!! That is part of the "risk" in employment in this industry. To
not have exposure would be like saying a welder should not be exposed to the
brightness of the weld field as he/she completes a weld field. When are we
as professionals going to stop this madness by simply admitting that there
are risks associated with this profession? Anybody want to be a fisherman
in Alaska?
Mitchell W. Davis, RRPT
Health Physicist
915-697-3523
915-349-4824 Cell
radiation@cox.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael G. Stabin <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>
To: radsafe <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 8:18 AM
Subject: some details on St. Lucie
>
> I have some details about the St. Lucie exposures, from a colleague who
> works there (Pete Bailey). He describes the exercise of the dose followup
as
> "MegaCalcs of FemtoDose", which I think describes a lot of HP work,
> reminiscent of "Atom Man", pictured in an HP newsletter some years ago as
a
> little guy with a butterfly net chasing an individual radioactive atom.
>
> (all comments with the ">" are from Mr. Bailey)
>
> > There was no "release" of activity in the emergency planning sense.
> > It all stayed in the containment . . .
> >
> > Within the containment, there was a task to clean the reactor head
> > in preparation for visual inspection.
> >
> > The cleaning occurred 'down ' in the refueling cavity,
> > about 40 feet below the operating deck.
> >
> > We knew the cleaning area could become 'airborne' ; that is,
> > the cleaning process could move some of the radiactive material into the
> > air.
> >
> > The people 'down there' doing the cleaning were wearing respirators, in
> addition to
> > the anit-contamination clothing, plastic 'rainsuits', boots, etc.
> >
> > People in other locations of the containment building were wearing
> > the standard anti-contamination clothing. Their jobs did not require
> > respirators. Most of the jobs were on the operating deck.
> >
> > The cleaning process generated more 'airborne' than was anticipated.
> >
> > The 'airborne' activity was moved by fans ( for cooling equipment &
> people )
> > to many locations within the containment.
> >
> > Some , not all, of the 'other' ( non-cleaning crew ) people inhaled
some
> of this
> > cloud as the left the containment.
> >
> > I've been very ( very very ) involved with the dose assessment of the
> > event.
> >
> > For all those people that had a measureable intake, the highest whole
body
> dose
> > is about 21 millirem. This is about 0.4% (four-tenths of one percent)
of
> the
> > annual limit for radiation workers.
>
> (Stabin's note) - applying the BERT concept, this highest value is
> equivalent to the dose that these workers would have received in about 25
> days of exposure to natural background radiation.
>
>
> Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP
> Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences
> Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences
> Vanderbilt University
> 1161 21st Avenue South
> Nashville, TN 37232-2675
> Phone (615) 343-0068
> Fax (615) 322-3764
> e-mail michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu
> internet www.doseinfo-radar.com
>
>
>
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>
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