Radioactive Diapers -ReplylyReply

[kevin.scott@po.state.ct.us]

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From: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
Subject:    Radioactive Diapers -Reply
Date: Thursday, August 08, 1996 4:32PM


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From: "CLAUDE A. FLORY" <FLORYCA@GWSMTP.NU.COM>
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Subject:  Radioactive Diapers -Reply
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X-Comment:  Radiation Safety Distribution List

A little war story about radioactive diapers:
A garbage truck from our Connecticut town was recently refused entry at the
regional disposal (should I say refuse) center because of a radiation alarm. 

Back in Middletown the truck contents were painstakingly searched.
(Fortunately
it wasn't in the middle of the summer.)  Yup! an adult diaper contaminated
with
I-131.  It was traced back to a public receptacle on main street.  The state
Department of Environmental Protection could not determine the origin (ask
Kevin Scott for more details).
Coincidentally (or maybe not) our environmental monitoring program found 
I-131
in a shellfish sample just downstream from town but upstream from our
Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Haddam Neck.

..

Hate to be a spoiler, but the item found was not a diaper, it was a 
household paper towel soaked with a yellowish brown fluid, with a contact 
reading of 825 mR/hr with a ion chamber.  I conducted a gamma spec on a 
smear and isotpoically identified it as I-131, with a estimated activity of 
32mCi.