Re: K40 in dead sea Thread - KCl Ice Melter

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

Radsafers:
If you ever wish to be aware of an unusual K-40 photon flux elevated dose rate
situation consider the following. Living in the northeast, several years ago I
went to a local BJ's Wholesale Warehouse during the winter. Stacked up near
the checkout lines were 18.2 kg canisters of KCl ice melter [about 8 wide x 12
long x 4 canisters high] containing in total about 7000 kg of KCl). Went back
with a Digi-dose meter and measured over 1 uSv [acutally about 150 uR per hour
in the vicinity of the stack]. I have a photo of a long line of women with
small children in shopping carts standing in the checkout line next to these
towering stacks of KCl canister waiting to check out.

It's kind of interesting that we're presently taking KCl out of salt mines,
exposing people on the surface to dose rates of 1 uSv per hour from the KCl
[whose K-40 has a half life of over a billion years], beginning to place
nuclear waste into salt mines [with half lives of primarily tens to thousands
of years], while many critics express concern about theoretical dose rates to
maximally exposed individuals sometime in the next 10,000 years which would
never approach 1 uSv per hour under the worst of circumstances. Go figure.


Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project
19 Stuart St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860
Phone:  (401) 727-4947   Fax: (401) 727-2032   E-mail: radproject@aol.com

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