Amchitka

[maury <maury@webtexas.com>]

A friend posed these questions (shown below)  to me concerning possible

radioactive contamination of seafood in the Amchitka region. Do any of

you happen to know of already existing measures that would likely detect

radioactivity contamination if it existed in that region? I would expect

that time and dilution would remove the effects of any seepage from the

underwater test crater.  (Which I'd think would negate DOE funding to do

more studies.)



I'd appreaciate any comments that you think might interest him.

Thanks in advance,

Maury    maury@webtexas.com



======================

"I live in Alaska, so this topic is in the news and I am interested.

Plus, I love king crab and I have friends who actually catch them for a

living in that area. The fishery [business] is difficult to say the

least. OSHA doesn't really apply to them.



"I wonder, though, how much of this is being "blown out" of proportion.

I believe, tragically, some workers may have been exposed on the surface

to excess radiation during the test and etc., but I don't know how much

residual risk in the marine environment there could ever be. A good

case-study exists in the south pacific. The Bikini Islands were a very

famous site for testing also (on the surface...geologically). They have

been studied quite a bit (since 1947). They didn't have much of a

problem with anything in the marine environment. The solution to

pollution is dilution. They still had some problems with the terrestrial

receptors though, until cleanup was completed recently.



"It is a tourist destination now. It is easy to tell when it is clean

when radioactivity is the issue. It is a lot harder with chemicals to

demonstrate things are cleaned up.



"Since the Amchitka test was not on the surface, I don't see the big

deal. The test was 1 mile deep. The ocean is relatively shallow there.

Any hydrologic connection via groundwater would have to percolate

through a lot of strata, and the rate and amount of slowly leaking

potentially contaminated groundwater would dissipate quickly once it

reached the seabed. Plus, the sea is awfully turbulent in that area all

year and it would be unlikely that radionuclides would buildup in any

single location.



Just some thoughts.

Anchorage, AK"



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