RE: Hanford Site Cleanup Standards

["Dukelow, James S Jr" <jim.dukelow@pnl.gov>]

Or to carry the analogy a bit further, if the kid fell in the river and drowned, we could sue the neighbor for having the pool that caused the drowning.



Best regards.



Jim Dukelow

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Richland, WA

jim.dukelow@pnl.gov



These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.



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

From: Stabin, Michael [mailto:michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu]

Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 2:14 PM

To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: RE: Hanford Site Cleanup Standards







> This is kind of like the "attractive nuisance" classification 

> for a swimming pool - taken one step further 



The difference here is that your neighbors don't sue you because a

family member *could have possibly* drowned in your pool, some actual

harm has to occur first. With radiation standards, a site may comply

with the law (which most agree is set to a conservative level), even

comply with ALARA, and anyone with cancer (which 20% of any population

living near any installation will of course have) can seek damages with

a good chance of winning, given the current conditions. They don't need

to win in court, an out-of-court settlement for some fraction of what

they sued for will do. If we applied practice with radiation standards

to swimming pools, all of us could become rich by suing all of our

neighbors that have pools, even if they were fenced in, screened in, and

monitored 24 hrs/day, claiming that one of our kids could theoretically

fall into them and drown.



Mike



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

Pager (615) 835-5153

e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu 

internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com



 



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