Green Sand, 1) clarification, 2) possible explanation

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

Dale and interested RADSAFErs,



I received a couple of messages with "constructive criticizm", which I thank

for and which I really read very carefully and take serious. In one of the

mails I was asked, why I got so upset that I wrote such a harsh comment.

This is easy to answer:



1) clarification:



I had the impression from the original message, that somebody - most

probably from a commercial company - wanted to get information in order to

avoid the work of own investigations from literature, save money for

measurements etc. I stand corrected and I know now that Dale is not from a

commercial company. The question posed cannot be solved without some

careful - though not necessarily costly and time consuming - investigations.

About 7 years ago I would have offered to do this work in my then Austrian

laboratory for a few thousand US$ - because I would have been interested in

the subject.



My personal reasons of being unfriendly - again I have to say that I assumed

that a commercial company was behind - is probably understandable telling

you a little about earlier advices I gave to people and what was the

outcome:



I had American students in my lab, working with me and learning about Liquid

Scintillation Spectrometry (LSC) - and I was happy that they were later very

successful and one even was awarded a student-medal at a HPS-meeting for his

work he did at my laboratory. One European post-doc was for three months at

my laboratory and of course he had access to all our results and papers. I

was extremely surprised being at a conference in Spain, that a person I did

not know presented my (!!) work and my data as his own, the post-doc being

his fifth co-author.



Being on the scientific board at the last LSC 2001 conference I checked

submitted papers and suddenly found, that a former collaborator of mine

wanted to present a paper under her name which I had published in a

scientific journal about two years before the conference, together with a

"co-author" who never had touched a liquid scintillation counter and who did

not even know about his co-authorship.



At the same conference another European presented environmental LSC methods

he claimed his laboratory had developed and introduced. About 70% of the

methods presented had been developed my myself, in some cases about 15 years

ago, the rest had been developed by other people I personally know well. The

person presenting knew the literature very well, because I had provided him

with it.



Recently I read in a well reputated journal an article about a part of an

extremely extensive international project about contamination at a former

nuclear test site (not in the USA). It was interesting, because it was

almost word by word what I had as the leader of the relevant group presented

at the conference summarizing the results and also at a meeting of the then

called BAER group. (It was of course not my own work, but the work of a

group, which I always had acknowledged in my presentations by naming them as

coauthors.)



But there is even a RADSAFE-related reason. Not so long ago a person from

the Middle East wanted to have information about NORM in drinking water.

Since I have worked on that topic for a long time - also in this persons

home country - I tried, as I had done before on similar topics to him to

give the information, searching for weeks for the literature I did not have

at hand. Fax transmission did not work and finally I found an electronic

version. I did not receive any "Thank you" - as I had not received any on

previous informations I sent. I know very well, that the culture of this

persons country knows "Please" and "Thank you". This person was also sending

out a request for a position to fill and I asked him about details - and

never received an answer. Therefore he will never receive another answer and

advice for instance for his last request for information on suppliers for

lead shieldings.



A company asked me about the conditions for import of radioactive material

to Austria. They asked me simultaneously whether I would accept a

consultation agreement for advising them on such matters. I agreed on the

consultation and sent them all the complicated information they needed for

the import - never received any money, never heard of them anymore.



More available. Please contact me directly if you are interested in how

companies cut their costs by asking on the internet for advice!



The conclusion of all this is that I have become very reluctant to share my

knowledge with people I do not know very well. I do it for free in the

Austrian Standardisation Institute and to former friends - but I think that

one should be careful after my bad experience. Anybody to tell me that in

the USA something like my experiences are unknown???????





2) Possible explanation of Daves findings:



"Green sand" is widely used for filtration of drinking water. I would not be

surprised if (most of) this "green sand" would be synthesized and not be

natural. To my knowledge it is a material related to zeolithes, which are

well known ion-exchangers. I think you could easily find this out by asking

the persons in charge of the water works and those companies who supply this

material. They should know much better than the RADSAFE community - this is

a serious criticism with regard to your inquiry.



I was also stunned by the fact that no nuclide specific data were given

originally. Now I know at least that it is "less than" regarding radium. I

would still need to know about the measurement methods used in order to

judge it and their results. What about radon interference?



The experience I have is the following: In a country in the Middle East we

investigated a deep bored well. This well contained not only sulphur

hydroxide, but also iron and manganese. There was a part of the treatment

which included aeration with air, blowing off and removing the H2S and

oxidizing Fe and Mn to hydroxides and oxyhydrates. These were filtered by

green sand. In spite of the treatment by aeration the final water showed a

much higher radon concentration than the original water from the well. What

happened? The radium in the treated water and especially the radium adsorbed

on the Fe and Mn hydroxides and oxyhydrates increased steadily and heavily

the radon concentration because of its emanation.



Do you now understand my question about measurement methods and

nuclidespecific results????? Hopefully. It is not enough to go for "gross"

whatsoever, which does not give any real information because the dose

coefficients of various nuclides are so much different.



Unless really nuclide-specific data are available there is no chance to give

a final explanation. I do not understand, why no careful investigation is

done. I cannot believe that it would be so expensive, that a US state could

not afford it!!! When I told a waterwork in Lower Austria, how much it would

cost to dispose of the radioactive waste from this waterwork which arose

from radium removal together with iron- and manganese removal, they just

laughed.



I hope you accept my explanation. Feed me with further information and I

will try to not only give you an explanation but also a solution.





Best regards,



Franz













>

I think I need to clarify my question and state a couple of other facts.

First of all the radioactive material in the  treated water is nuclides

from the U-238 series of natural nuclides specifically Ra-226, etc. The

influent water is from 3 wells, all of which are less than the maximum

contaminant limit (MCL) for these nucides i.e. 5 pCi/L (Ra-226 and

Ra-228, apprently here it's overwhelmingly Ra-226). I don't have the

numbers in front of me. The 3 rd well was recently added. Its activity

was determined to be less than the MCL for these nuclides as prior to

connecting it to the green sand filter. The water that came out after

treatment exceeded the standard of 5 pCi/l combined Radium.

To summarize, water going in has minimal or less than MCL amounts of Ra

going in, and after treatment it exceeds those stnandards cited above.

My question is why? Specifically, is it possibly the NORM material is in

the green sand which seems logical, and does the water chemistry(ph,

etc.)mobilize this material during the treatment? Does anyone on the

list have experience in such things?Those are my questions.





Now a couple of other facts, the RADSAFE list has been a source of

invaluable information on a number of occasions for me. I asked my

question, not because I'm a consultant. I'm not.  You could say, I'm in

the non-profit sector, because the consultants make a profit from the

information I give the citizens of this state every day. And I provide

it to them  free(even to the consultants who call me) . An engineer in

the public water supply section of our state governmemnt asked to

discuss this issue with me, and I indicated I would take it to the list

for help. Many of the responses have been helpful, and a few have made

me want to return to my usual role of lurking and learning from the

list, rather than posting. Some past participants have even decided to

leave the list after posting and receiving derisive responses. I have

chosen to remain but I make one request to any list members who might

respond to this posting.



Try to answer the question I've aked and prior to making any further

pronouncements about my motives, my affiliations, or any other personal

characteristics, please contact me off the list, and make sure you have

your facts straight. To do anything less would indicate at best a rush

to judgement, and at worst a lack of professionalism, however great the

academic attainments of the offender.



Dale Dusenbury, CHP, MSPH

NC Radiation Protection Section

3825 Barrett Drive

Raleigh, NC 27609-7221

e-mail:dale.dusenbury@ncmail.net







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