Hey all,
I'm a toxicologist with the Env. Tox. Program in
the Maine Bur. of Health. In Maine we have a problem with U in well
water - not a horrible problem overall - maybe a few percent of wells
above 20-30 ug/l, but what makes my palms sweat is the occasional wells in
the 2,000+ ppb range. We know that kidney tox is the issue (altho you
do get some cancer risk at these high concentrations - especially when you
take into account disequilibrium). (Obviously, we tell them to take
corrective actions).
But what I want to look into is correlations
between U and radon or radium in well water (I should say this is a little
bit academic - we have a radon issue in Maine as well - our recommendation
is that everyone do a radon test, there doesn't seem to be a lot of radium
in wellwater in Maine). While I'm waiting for our in house data to
appear, I thought I'd ask the collective wisdom in radsafe land. I
haven't found a lot in the literature that suggests decent correlations (it
really seems to depend a lot on local geology, etc.). Do any of you have any
direct experience or opinions? In particular, I'm more interested in
correlations between U and radium in GW at these higher levels.
Thoughts?
---------------------------------
Eric,
From all I know - and I have followed these questions since a long
time - there cannot be established correlations between Ra-226 and Uranium,
between Ra-226 and Ra-228, between Ra-226 and Rn-222 and between any
radionuclide of the decay chains to another one. Geological factors
determine the abundance of radionuclides as well as non-radioactive heavy
metals. Some disequilibria are even used to study geological phenomena.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I recommend the one and only reasonable
approach to the question of radionuclide distribution:
measurements.
Best regards,
Franz