Re: AW: Amchitka - waste of taxpayers money

[maury <maury@webtexas.com>]

Franz, thank you very much for your comprehensive and gracious response to

my inquiry. Your information has been forwarded and I am certain it will put

to rest any qualms that my Alaskan friend might have about his favorite

seafoods.



Just out of curiousity, what are a couple of your favorite Austrian dishes?

I know of one excellent German restaurant here in Ft. Worth Texas, but what

might I look for that might be a truly Austrian dish?

Thanks again,

Maury Siskel    maury@webtexas.com



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

Franz Schönhofer wrote:



> 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"

>

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