Biodegradable LSC cocktails revisited

["Butland, Rick" <RButland@nbpower.com>]

Time to delurk temporaily

A while back there was some discussion relating to allegedly
biodegradable LSC cocktails, and several members stated that they were
not nearly as benign as you were supposed to be led to believe.  I
forwarded several of the emails to my superiors to make then aware of
these issues.  Of course after they read them they decided that since I
was the original source, I should be the one to obtain further info.

A couple of examples:

On March 7, Kristin Erickson wrote:

>7.	We also were told there was some research done, and when we
>examined it, it was inadequate, grossly so.  (If I take a fish and put it
>in a solution of these cocktails, and he doesn't die quickly, is that a
>good study?  Not in our opinion!)  We had our toxicologists look at these
>cocktails, and they recommended against using them.  There are chemicals in
>them that are not proven to be safe for people, animals or the environment.
>As stated with the mercury, many are hazardous or toxic.

Could we get copies of these reports, please?

On March 6, Ron Amoling wrote:

>Specifically, Amersham Biodegradable Counting Fluid BLS was analyzed 
>and the sample contained 43 ppb of Mercury.  This exceeds our local 
>(Massachusetts Water Resources Authority) effluent concentration 
>limit of 1 ppb.

Do any of the other cocktails contain Mercury? We use Ultima Gold from
Packard.  Have there been any studies on it?

I just picked the above as a couple of examples.

The general consensus seemed to be that these cocktails were not the
harmless liquids that the promo literature seemed to imply.  If anyone
could provide copies of any analyses that were done, or point to sources
(URLs, journals, etc.) to obtain them we would be greatly appreciative.
We're not so much interested in the regs surrounding these, since we are
in Canada, and most of you are in the US. What we are looking for is
what is really in these compounds, either as constituents or
contaminants. My superiors will need something that is at least
minimally citable, so if you can provide that or point me towards it,
that would be great.

Thanks very much.