DOT Regulations

["Troy D. Taylor" <TAYLTROY@lcs.isu.edu>]

I have a query for all of you on Radsafe:

We might need to ship several 1 liter poly bottles of water sampled 
from a contaminated site.  Most isotopes are far below concern, 
however, Sr-90 might be as high as 0.5 uCi/L.

It seems to me that 49CFR173.403(y) applies here, which defines 
radioactive material as "any material having a specific activity 
greater than 0.002 mCi per gram."  and further defines specific 
activity one way as: "a material in which the radionuclide is 
essentially uniformly distrubuted is the activity per unit mass of 
the material."

Since the samples are from a well and the radioisotopes are
uniformly distributed, then I would assume this 
infers that anything lower than 2 uCi/g or ml of water would be below 
regulatory concern.   Right? [grin]

Besides the precautions for shipping a liquid would the above 
assumption cover this situation?

Thanks for your time,

Troy D. Taylor
Health Physicist
Idaho State University
Technical Safety Office