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RE: Dirty bombs
My humble opinion is to use the hoses as effectively as possible
and as soon as possible -- diffusion into materials and even surface
binding take time, so get rid of as much as is easy as fast as practical.
Then, there is time to evaluate the problem and make decisions about
further measures.
But what we can do now is show that the calculated number of
deaths advertised by the alarmists are complete nonsense, since they
ignore even the easy clean-up, and assure the public that there is nothing
major to fear. This is a message we should be trying to get out loud and
clear and immediately. If we do get it out, the terrorists will have
little reason to use a dirty bomb.
I thought the analogy with salt used on roads would be useful in
this endeavor. We should be writing papers on debunking the alarmists, and
info on effectiveness of clean-up would be useful for this purpose.
Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc@pitt.edu
On Fri, 28 Feb 2003, Nardi, A. Joseph wrote:
> This is really an issue of "How clean is clean enough". When
> decommissioning a licensed facility we are required to take more effort to
> chase "the last atom" because of the exposure scenarios that are associated
> with the development of cleanup criteria. Such decommissioning scenarios
> should not be considered applicable to the cleanup associated with an act of
> terrorism particularly in an outdoor environment. It seems to me that one
> of the considerations that should be thought out now is what would be the
> appropriate cleanup criteria to be applied in the event of such an act of
> terrorism. Otherwise we are going to end up with the default criteria. The
> elements that would be required to establish appropriate criteria might be
> as follows:
>
> * Establish a rational dose criteria to be used in these scenarios.
> This might be done on a time dependent basis such as the first five years,
> the second 10 years, etc.
> * Define a realistic scenario for the dose calculation based on
> different dirty bomb scenarios.
> * Establish a model that is based on realistic model parameters, not
> using the general approach for decommissioning models where the parameters
> are the 90th percentile or other levels of conservatism.
> * Use the above to establish reasonably protective cleanup criteria
> that can be used in such an event before the act rather than trying to
> develop the criteria in the "heat of the moment".
>
> Just my humble opinion
>
>
> A. Joseph Nardi, Supervisory Engineer
> Westinghouse Electric Company
> P. O. Box 355
> Pittsburgh, PA 15230
> Telephone: 412-374-4652
> FAX Number: 412-374-3357
> email: nardiaj@westinghouse.com
>
>
> John Andrews wrote:
>
> > I cleaned up an old spill of Cs-137 once. The material had been cleaned
> > up years earlier, but residual material remained on some of the
> > concrete. It had penetrated into the concrete up to one inch in
> > discrete spots. This indicated to me that actual grains of the spilled
> > source material remained on the concrete and the cesium was sorbed by
> > whatever reaction into the concrete. There was low level general
> > contamination just above backround in adjacent areas indicating
> > migration from the hot spots. Effective cleaning included jackhammering
> > or intense needle-gun decon of the spots and scabbling the general areas
> > to 1/2 inch.
> >
> > I would expect the same from any Cs-137 spill.
> >
> > John Andrews
> > Knoxville, Tennessee
> >
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