Recycling metals and radon - some frustrated musings

["Tony LaMastra" <alamastra@enter.net>]

It is interesting to read proposals and comments on the proposals to 
recycle metals from DOE and NRC regulated sites.   As someone who has 
had his feet in two spheres; the steel industry and health physics, I 
watched with annoyance and amazement while the nuclear industry
acquiesced to regulations limiting doses well below the legal limits 
(and doses which over the decades have not shown real harm).   Today 
we have that grand philosophical concept, ALARA, as a regulatory 
requirement - when this was never the initial intention.   Is it any 
wonder that the general public considers "radiation" to be a risk 
much greater than it is?   As health physicists we must shoulder some 
of the responsibility now that we want certain events to occur, such 
as recycling.

Isn't it interesting that major cities spend hundreds of thousands of 
dollars each year to "take care of" radioactive municiple waste 
detected at landfills and incinerators?   And what is the culprit?   
A few drops of mucous or sputum containing I-131 on a tissue!   When 
cities are hard strapped for funds, they must pay people to "take 
care of this hazardous material."   Does it make any sense that an 
elderly patient can throw soiled "diapers" into the trash at home, but 
a hospital gets fined if it does the same thing?

As an industry (health physics) we have gone along with lowering 
dose limits to ridiculous levels.   How does one accurateely measure 
a dose of 1 millirem over the course of a year?   I doubt we can 
accurately measure a difference of 10 millirem spread over and entire 
year.   Yet, we allow these regulations to become law.   Now we are 
reaping the harvest of our efforts.   We have the public so 
convinced that any amount of radiation is hazardous, they  "want" 
no "radiation" in anything.   

As an industry, we simply reply that we haven't done a good enough 
job of educating the public.   But we have done a very good job.   We 
have educated them to the "fact" that sub-background levels of radiation 
are hazardous.   If a release limit for a facility is 1 or 10 
millirem per year, then living in the Rocky Mountain states must 
be really hazardous.

I don't know much about the likelihood of recycling non-ferrous 
metals, but there is significant reluctance to recycling ferrous 
metals - even if they are "slightly" contaminated.  One reason is 
that there is a significant cost to the iron and steel industry if 
the material causes an alarm.   Today's detectors are capable of 
detecting gamma fluxes in the 3 to 8 percent range above the supressed 
background (25% below ambient background) that occurs when a scrap 
vehicle enters the monitoring area.   The facility must expend 
manpower to respond to the alarm.  This is not an insignificant cost. 
And because of the enormous costs involved if a source is melted in a 
furnace, the sensitivity of detection systems will continue to 
increase.

Another point to keep in mind is, what do you think the public's 
reaction would be if it became publicized that commercial products 
(cars, refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, etc.) were being 
made out of steel that was contaminated with radioactive materials?  
I'm sure the public would be quite reasonable and accept our 
explanations that the levels were below "acceptable limits."   After 
all, we have been quite successful in educating them that all 
radiation is harmful, why souldn't we expect that we could re-educate 
them to accept some low levels of radiation?

With respect to radon, I also have first hand knowledge.   My first 
question is, "why do we test for radon and not radon daughters?"   My 
second question is that if the EPA guideline is supposed to be an annual 
average to which people are actually exposed, why do we recommend 
remediation after a single short term test?   Wasn't the original 
logic that since radon influx into a house can vary from season to 
season, a single short term test wasn't adequate to determine the 
annual average.   Somehow, that logic has changed.   Now a single 
test (even though someone having infinite wisdom concluded that two 
short term devices placed side by side during the same test period 
was the equivalent of an initial and a follow up test) is adequate.   
It is even better if you place a continuous monitor, you only need one, 
because the continuous readings have been deemed to be equivalent to 
multiple tests.   Several years ago, I calculated that I was 
"responsible" for over $500,000 in unecessary mitigation because we 
detected radon in concentrations of 4.0 to 4.5 pCi/l in many 
basements during short term tests.   Was there a real hazard in these 
homes? - I doubt it.   But was there a risk?   There certainly was!  
The risk that the buyer might have to spend some money when he went 
to sell the house.   Thus, the desire that the present owner "fix" 
the problem.

What will we do when the public learns that salt substitutes are 
radioactive?   Will we see a rash of law suits blaming cancer on 
taking salt substitutes.   Or better yet, will we see malpractice 
suits against doctors for prescribing salt substitutes and eating 
bananas?   What will we do when we go to sell our house and someone 
detects "elevated" radiation coming from the K-40 in the limestone 
used as crushed rock below the slab, and refuses to buy the house.   
Worse yet, what if they buy the house and learn a few years later 
that the crushed rock is radioactive.   We are more liable than the 
average person because we knew the rocks were "loaded" with that 
terrible radioactivity.   Or, what will happen when the "good guys" 
chase the evil tobacco and alcohol "baddies" out of town?   Will they 
look for the next victim and find that parents can be prosecuted because 
they are "poisoning" their children by forcing them to eat radioactive 
spinich and carrots and broccoli, or, God, forbid, making them drink 
well water that might have more than 300 pCi/l of radon in it?   Oh, I 
forgot, this limit has been withdrawn, at least for the time being.

Years ago, someone in the Society produced a film, "Safety 
Professionals Don't Make Good Used Car Salesmen."   It was great!   
The thrust of the film was that a prospective buyer of a used car was 
asking a simple question, "Is the car safe?"   The part time used car 
salesmen (part time safety professional) couldn't answer the 
question.   All he could do was point out all the safety features of 
the car.   Finally the buyer walked away, while the saleman was 
pointing out another safety feature.   In our effort to be 
"scientifically correct", we often hedge our answers when asked if 
low level radiation is safe.   Decades of such responses have 
convinced the public that radiation must be hazardous if even ew 
cannot provide a clear cut "YES" to radiation doses in the range of 
background.

Finally, someone made a comment that it is cheaper to recycle steel 
than produce it from raw materials and that it was safer.   It is 
probably safer, when all things are considered.   However, in 
actuality, it is cheaper to produce a ton of steel from raw 
materials, at this point in time, than from recycled steel.   The 
cost of scrap is pretty high right now because of the world wide 
shortage (for good scrap).