[ RadSafe ] RE: we remain our own worse enemy

[George J. Vargo]

Sandy,

We're stuck in a dilemma of distinguishing  between safety and excellence, a
subtle, but important distinction.  We achieve safety (i.e., the prevention
of debilitating accidents, acute or chronic health effects, etc.) very
consistently, nearly 100%, and expect excellence (i.e., the absence of ANY
unexpected exposures or intakes) as the norm.  I agree that in today's
environment, an unplanned exposure of 100 mrem or an intake of 40 DAC-hr
could well represent a failure of planning and execution and, therefore, a
failure to achieve excellence, but it has minimal safety significance from a
health effects standpoint.  The regulated community (both NRC and DOE in the
US) have set excellence as the norm, and have thereby redefined an
overexposure as a failure to achieve excellence in planning and execution.
We need to find better terms and redefine an unexpected or unplanned
exposure as something other than an "overexposure", which has regulatory
(i.e., beyond regulatory limits) and possibly clinical implications.  This
is another case of sloppiness in use of the English language and I would
urge our colleagues, especially in the regulatory community to find a better
expression for the failure to achieve excellence in radiological protection.
The down-side is the "Mozart" problem using an analogy from the movie
"Amadeus" -- in the words of the Emperor "too many notes" and a possible
charge of radio-obfuscation.

George

George J. Vargo, Ph.D., CHP
Senior Scientist
MJW Corporation
http://www.mjwcorp.com
610-925-3377
610-925-5545 (fax)
vargo at physicist.net


-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Perle [mailto:sandyfl at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 17:32
To: nuclear news list
Subject: we remain our own worse enemy


I continue to believe that the nuclear industry itself, is our own worse
enemy. We really don't need to the be concerned with the fringe lunatics who
banter various dose figures and risk indices around, when our own industry
continues to fall over itself in striving to lower allowable dose,
administratively or otherwise, by establishing even lower average man-rem
goals, year after year after year. When our own industry touts lowering dose
well below regulatory limits, how can we argue with those who are opposed to
the nuclear option, and are proponents of even lower doses to workers? We
continue to shoot ourselves in the foot, every step we take.

The following is from a news article I just provided to the news list. Even
West Valley uses the term "overexposed" workers. They might have exceeded an
administrative limit, set arbitrarily low, but overexposed? Overexposed to
what .. what standard and to what effect!

"An independent report sought by West Valley Nuclear Services Co., the site
contractor, indicated the overexposed workers received doses of 315 and 169
millirems of radiation. That compares to the 360 millirems that the average
American absorbs in a year from things like X-rays and the sun."

Semantics is important. More important is rational thinking. I see no
rational thinking and obviously poor semantics used in our industries own
publications.

Wake up industry. The precedent you set may be your last!

-------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1902 

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at earthlink.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/