AW: Amchitka - waste of taxpayers money

[Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

Maury, RADSAFErs,



I hardly know anything about the Amchitka test and was too lazy to look

it up in literature right now, but what I know is that it was an

underground test, accompanied by a huge underwater landslide.



There are a few other locations in this world, which might be used for

comparison, which will clearly indicate, that the "research" proposed is

just a waste of taxpayers money.



For underground tests you might refer to the Nevada Test Site, to the

tests of the Sovjetunion either in Kazachstan or Novaja Semlja, but the

most comprehensive and extremely easily accessible literature you will

find about the French tests on Mururoa and Fangataufa. Since the tests

at the Marshall Islands have only been atmospheric and not underground

they cannot serve for comparison.



Both locations Mururoa and Fangataufa are atolls, embracing a lagoon and

surrounded by open sea. 193 nuclear tests were conducted there between

1966 and 1996, of which 41 were atmospheric nuclear tests and 5

atmospheric "safety trials". 



At the request of the French Government the IAEA conducted a study on

"The Radiological Situation at the Atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa"

(also the title of the report) which lasted from 1996 to 1998, the

results of which were presented at a big international conference in

Vienna and the mentioned report. The aim of this study was to carefully

evaluate the radiological situation and to corroborate the results of

the extremely extensive French surveillance programme. It extended also

to the open sea and the question whether there was any impact on other

atolls of French Polynesia or within the South Pacific.



I can personally only speak for the terrestrial working group of which I

was the head: There was no interference whatsoever from whatever side

concerning our work, our sampling programme, our in-situ measurements

and our laboratory measurements and - most important - the published

results. I do not doubt that the same is true for the aquatic working

group.  



Needless to say, that in spite of the atmospheric nuclear tests the

contamination both in the terrestrial and aquatic environment is

extremely low and - to give a comparison - the contamination with Cs-137

due to the Chernobyl accident is higher in Europe than on the two

atolls. The main radiological contributor is Po-210 in seafood - as it

is everywhere in this world - and this is of natural origin. The only

enhanced radionuclide concentrations from underground tests which could

be found in the lagoon were for tritium - but the concentration was

lower than in rainwater in the Northern Hemisphere.



The IAEA has published an extremely comprehensive report, which even

contains the results of all single measurements (the title was given

above). It was published in 1998 and you can find more about it on the

IAEA website (Publications). 





In this context the research on contamination of the Irish sea and the

"shores" of Cumbria (UK) by the emissions from the Nuclear Fuel

Recycling Plant at Sellafield might be of interest for comparisons. For

LaHague in France there exist also reports. In both cases Po-210 is the

radionuclide of the highest - but though negligible - contamination

potential. 





There are of course different condition comparing e.g. Mururoa and

Amchitka. One which might be of most importance is the environment -

Mururoa is very warm (also the water, nice to swim in it) and Amchitka

cold. From all my limited knowledge on radioecology (Chernobyl based) I

draw the conclusion, that in cold waters the uptake of radionuclides by

organisms must be much slower, and therefore the contamination much

lower. BTW we enjoyed locally caught fish on Mururoa very much and in

1987 I enjoyed locally harvested shrimps, prawns etc. very much in

Cumbria. 



Another difference is the yield of the explosions. While the French were

obviously only interested in tactical nuclear devices of rather low

yield (a comprehensive overview on the yields of the Mururoa test

devices can be found in the IAEA report), the Amchitka bomb yield was by

far higher. 



Though not having been there and not having done any measurements I

think when considering my experience from Mururoa there is not the

slightest risk as to contamination of seafood in Amchitka. I offer

everybody, who pays my trip there to eat crab everyday and of course I

mean those crabs which have not been checked by radioactivity

measurements.  



Since DOE seems to have too much money available I offer to participate

in this exercise at a modest fee. My experience with the Mururoa Project

should be excellent credentials!



There were many US scientists involved in the IAEA Mururoa Project. Does

DOE not even trust US scientists? 





As for your friend and the king crab fisher - they may contact me if

they want and my comments and advices to them will be free of charge of

course!



Best regards from our good old Austria, which is cut off from the sea

since the end of WW I and even before never enjoyed king crabs.....



Franz









-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu] Im Auftrag von maury

Gesendet: Mittwoch, 18. August 2004 08:56

An: Radiation Safety

Betreff: Amchitka



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"









************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/