Re: inhaled dose

[Raymond A Hoover <ray2hoover@YAHOO.COM>]

Andre, to the best of my knowledge there has been no airborne hazard in the vicinity of the Chernobyl Shelter, since the accident in 1986.   There is monitoring being done and, assuming my memory is correct, little to no airborne activity is being found.  No respiratory protection should be necessary (the Ukrainians working there don't wear respirators).  There are hot spots in the area (highest I ever detected was about 150 microR/h, I think), and there are probably hotter spots that I didn't find, but on the whole I wouldn't worry.  After living there for about 2 years (and I was eating the local produce mostly), I picked up a body burden of roughly 100 Bq of Cs-137.  I believe the natives carry a body burden on the order of 1000 Bq of Cs-137 on average.  However, if you don't eat much of the native food while there, you are unlikely to pick up much of a burder.  Additionally, there is Sr-90 in the food supply (mostly from freshwater fish taken from the rivers and lakes in!



  t!

he

 area).  There are of course a large number of other detectable isotopes, but the amounts of these isotopes are very small and contribute little to potential dose from ingestion, and probable inhalation.

 

In summary, as long as you don't go into the Shelter, don't worry.  If you do go into the Shelter, there are places inside, where the contamination levels are well controled, the dose levels are low and there is little risk of inhalation, but there are also places inside where contamination levels are high, the rad fields are high, and there is a risk of inhalation, however these areas are generally (or were) off limits to visitors.

 

Hope that helps.



andre geerdink <volkswagen181@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

Dear radsafers,



Me and a colleague, also working in radiation safety, are planning a visit 

to the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl reactor.

I know the radiation levels are low and obviously these are easy to measure. 

More diffiult to estimate is what doses to expect from inhalation of 

airborne radioactive contaminated particles. What concentrations of 

radioactive isotopes are to be expected in dust and what dose would you 

inhale in a day? Would we need breathing protection?

Who can give me some clues what to expect?



André Geerdink



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