Re: Industry Event

[rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu (ron kathren)]

Sandy --

It's all in how you look at things; presumably you mean 1000 dpm/100 square
cm.  Let me ask the question:  would you want your children (or newly
pregnant wife, for that matter) playing in an area with that level of
contamination (especially if it's Pu -- I know, I know, power plants are
concerned with beta activity!)?  That level of contamination over a wide
area might be of concern; if confined to a small area might be
insignificant.  The problem is somewhat more complex, I think, than you suggest.

Cheers,

Ron Kathren

>     Haven't seen the article but have seen many like it before. The 
>     problem with this nuclear hysteria is, that they never provide any 
>     real information, such as, how much contamination, what was the extent 
>     of the contamination, was anybody else contaminated due to having 
>     contact with the tools, where was it found, how long was it in the 
>     area before being identified as contaminated and was there any dose 
>     associated with it. To put things in perspective from a nuclear power 
>     plant perspective, an item is considered contaminated if there is 100 
>     cpm above background, i.e., in our case, 1,000 dpm. While we don't 
>     know the levels of contamination in this situation, 1,000 dpm is not 
>     significant, becoming so only due to its association with a power 
>     plant.
>     
>     Sandy Perle
>     Supervisor Health Physics
>     Florida Power and Light Company
>     Nuclear Division
>     
>     (407) 694-4219 Office
>     (407) 694-3706 Fax
>     
>     sandy_perle@email.fpl.com
>     
>     HomePage: http://www.lookup.com/homepages/54398/home.html
>
>
>