Re: Apparent Illegal Shipment

["Jim Hardeman" <Jim_Hardeman@dnr.state.ga.us>]

Barbara -



Amen sister! 



You're absolutely correct that once the source of radiation is determined to be a medical radionuclide, in most cases the best thing to do is get the load in the landfill as soon as possible - and this is the guidance that we provide to our landfill operators. At first we got some resistance from them about "no radioactive materials" conditions in their permits, but after consulting with both them and our cousins who handle solid waste regulation, we were able to convince them that in a period of days to weeks there would be, for all intents and purposes "no radioactive materials" and that if they had a problem with waste leaching out of the landfill in that period of time, they had FAR bigger problems that a few microcuries of I-131, Th-201 or Tc-99m leaking out of their landfill.



Oh, not only is digging around in the waste "disgusting" as you pointed out, it's also DANGEROUS. I'm sure this doesnt happen THESE DAYS, but several years ago my colleagues dug around in a landfill looking for some I-131 contaminated waste and ran into some sharps. Fortunately nobody got cut. We do find it sometimes educational to look at waste when we see Tc-99m, since the odds of that one coming from patient waste is pretty slim ... and we've been able to track the waste back to hospital nuclear medicine programs nearly 100% of the time (through paperwork associated with the contaminated materials, etc.). Fortunatately, we can usually track the source as the waste handlers transfer it from the truck onto the ground, and can locate it will very little "mucking around". Our Radioactive Materials Program folks then worked with them to improve their procedures (and in some case their monitoring) to insure that nothing makes it out the back door.



As an aside, one of our I-131 incidents got reported through the National Response Center instead of our normal internal state reporting systems ... and by the time WE got notified, we were already getting phones calls from the Homeland Security Operations Center in DC (invoking President Bush's and Secretary Ridge's names in the first 15 seconds of the conversations). The waste trailer was in rural Georgia a couple of hours outside Atlanta, and under normal circumstances we would have handled it in daylight the following day. But, since it became a matter of "national security" we had to take a moonlight tour of middle Georgia. So like it or not, if these contaminated waste events make it into the federal reporting system, they will become matters of "national security". 



Jim Hardeman, Manager

Environmental Radiation Program

Environmental Protection Division

Georgia Department of Natural Resources

4244 International Parkway, Suite 114

Atlanta, GA 30354

(404) 362-2675

Fax: (404) 362-2653

E-mail: Jim_Hardeman@dnr.state.ga.us



>>> <BLHamrick@AOL.COM> 2/14/2004 15:02:07 >>>

In a message dated 2/13/2004 8:36:14 AM Pacific Standard Time, 

idias@interchange.ubc.ca writes:

This is probably some NORM. Several years ago there was a rail car with

recycled scrape pipes, etc going back and forth between Fort Nelson and the

recycle yard in Prince George, BC. The recycle yard was rejecting it because

it alarmed their monitors but the oil company did not know it was

radioactive. I was doing a contract with Petro Canada at the time and found

out that there is no clear regulatory limits for NORM, or TENORM as the ANSI

committee prefers to call it.

It may also be the result of residential waste from the home of a patient 

recently receiving treatment or diagnosis using RAM.  Los Angeles County responds 

to over 50 of these alarms a year at landfills.  Over 95% are I-131 or other 

nuclear medicine isotope.  It's expensive, a waste of resources, and 

disgusting (to dig through the waste).  I'd rather these facilities got themselves a 

simple portable spec system, set up the library to have ONLY nuclear medicine 

isotopes, and only call for assistance if it is NOT one of those, otherwise the 

safest thing to do is just bury the load.



Barbara



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