Re: Chernobly and Air Sampling

["EMIL KERREMBAEV" <EKERREMBAEV@r06.tdh.state.tx.us>]

Ye, it was almost 10 years ago...
Hard to believe.
EMK.



> Date sent:      Tue, 21 Nov 95 10:23:27 -0600
> Send reply to:  radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> From:           VERNIG.PETER@FORUM.VA.GOV
> To:             Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
> Subject:        Chernobly and Air Sampling

> Well since the consensus seems to be that war stories are worth
> putting out, I'll share this one.  I was the Reactor HP at the
> Berkekley Research REactor, at U.C. Berkeley when Chernobyl had
> it's operational problems that became so well known.  For days on
> the news I watched the computer projections of the clowd wondering
> if it would show up on our air samplers.  I had been told that a
> couple of the Chinese tests had shown up.  After about a week the
> clowd kind of reversed directions and I thought that's it, it'll
> disperse so much I'll never see it.   WRONG!  About 2 weeks after
> the event, when I collected the weekly air sampling filters we had
> from undreds to thousands of cpm on all of the inside ones.  The 
> air was pulled in from outside without filtration and went through
> a bank of HEPA filters in the main exhaust line.  There was an auxiliary
> line or three, one of which also came up hot.  Turned out the exhaust
> for the fume hood air line was not filtered.  The line consisted of
> two 6 inch ducts down the sides of the reactor lab and filters were
> supposed to be added between a hood and the line.  No fume hoods were
> installed and the vents, about one every 10 feet were not all closed.
>  
> So we actually learned about a shortcoming from the Chernobyl fallout
> {It's an ill wind...etc.}  We also put the filters into an intrinsic
> germanium detector with some software called RAYGUN, that came out of
> LASL and IDed 7 or 8 of the fission fragment isotopes.  Had lots of
> fun!
>  
> Peter G. Vernig, VA Medical Center, Denver, vernig.peter@forum.va.gov
>