Sorry folks, for inadvertently bringing unrelated issues into the thread.
My big question is on how a person is supposed to able to determine whether
the identity and amount of RAM on a swab or wipe exceed applicable limits.
Mention has been made of "screening procedures" for this, but we are
frequently working in areas with little or no access to equipment more
sophisticated than a good Ludlum pancake probe. Is there inexpensive
lightweight ("man-portable") equipment out there than can reliably detect
nanocurie amounts of RAM (including tritium) on a wipe in a period of several
seconds or less? If so, I'd love to hear about it. If not, then there is
really no such thing as a decent screening procedure for lab surveillance
applications.
My point on the regs is that it's ridiculous to think that DOT should be
concerned with what's on my smear wipes when their rules would allow
someone to transport relatively huge amounts of material without restriction.
As an example, consider 1 Ci of NaI diluted into 500,000 litres of water in a
tanker. It's under the 0.002 uCi/g limit, but it's still ten million times
what I pulled up with my hot smear wipes last week.
Eric Denison