Re: Accidents and Dose Limits -Reply

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Occupational and public dose limits in current regulations apply to normal
operations, and are to be used in the decisionmaking for planning and
managing those operations. Accident dose limits, or more correctly
guidelines, are to be used in the decisionmaking process once an accident
has occurred. And while you would be correct to use those guidelines when
attempting to control conditions and mitigate the accident, you can expect
to be cited for exceeding the normal regulatory limits if you do so.
Accident guidelines are not permission to exceed normal operations limits,
and doses over normal limits violate the regulations, even if the
overexposure happens during an accident.



Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(415) 926-3793     bflood@slac.stanford.edu
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.