Guard's Uniforms

[Keith Welch <welch@CEBAF.GOV>]

Bill said:

>> That IS a factor.  We ended up having to buy new uniforms for our security 
>> force. 
>>  
>> The opinions expressed are strictly mine. 
>> Here's to a risk free world, and other fantasies. 
>>  
>> Bill Lipton 
>> liptonw@detroitedison.com 

Jim Muckerheide said:

>Interesting "solution" :-) "Rad protection" strikes again. Don't we begin to
>feel a little ludicrous? 

I don't see it as ludicrous.  It just turns out to be one of the facts of
life at a nuc plant.  You've got real sensitive detectors that thousands of
bodies go through on an ongoing basis.  False alarms due to "nuisance"
nuclides can be a real time/money wasting aggravation.  Taking this into
account for large groups who are "issued" clothing makes sense to me.  The
only unhappy part of the story is that some money was "wasted" on the
original set of uniforms.

However, if Bill's experience was similar to what happened at my site, it
came about due to the gradual (or in some cases sudden) increase in the
monitoring capability, such that levels of activity previously undetected
started becoming a problem, so there was no way to predict that the clothing
would be an issue and plan ahead on it.  Now that I think back, we may have
actually replaced the guard's uniforms at my site also - one issue was that
the cotton ones were more comfortable - as well as being "radon-busters".

Keith Welch
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Newport News VA
welch@cebaf.gov
Ph: (757)269-7212
FAX:(757)269-5048