[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

EPA & NRC & FGR 13



RADSAFERS

Daniel Kane makes a good point that US RADSAFERS should keep in
mind.  The EPA sets US radiation policy by advising the president
(lets don't go down that rabbit trail) and every now and then
the prez proclames some instructions to the Feds and thus, EPA's
policies become the law of the land.

This is what makes the Federal Guidance Reports so important.

FGR 11 (1988) adopted and extended ICRP recommendations,
bacically ICRP 30 information.

The president had previously (1987) approved EPA recommendations
that the US adopt this ICRP guidance.  FGR 11 mostly contains 
ALIs and DACs.

FGR 12 (1993) provides dose estimates resulting from exposures
from various environmental pathways.  It, for example, made
easy the estimatation of the dose to persons floating in Dead Sea
water containing some known concentration of K-40.  That
question came up a month or so ago

FGR 13 provides estimates of the risk of cancer death (mortality)
and the risks of cancers from which one recovers (morbidity) due
to exposures to very low concentrations or intakes of
environmnetal radionuclides.

FGR 11 and FGR 12 have nothing to do with the LNT theory.
FGR 13 will make it the law of the land.

There will no longer be any need for population doses, no more
man-rems or person-severts.  We will simply calculate the number
of painful, expensive and lethal cancers that our proposed
nuclear facility will cause to the innocent people who are
unfortunate enough to have our nuclear whatever-it-is in
their backyard.

One purpose of my previous posting on FGR 13 was not to suggest
that Denver actually be evacuated, but to point out this
accepted risk of radiogenic cancer mortality.  Government
agencies often put forward one in a million as an acceptable
risk level for some regulated cancer causing agent. Living in
Denver is not only accepted, but encouraged by several government
agencies.  Living in Denver rather that choosing to live, didn't
I say Boston last time, is a government encouraged choice that
has a cancer mortality risk of over 3000 in a million.

The government (EPA, NRC, who cares) will probably go for a one
in a million (maybe ten million, who knows) risk level for
acceptable emission from nuclear facilities.

I look at my posting on this topic not as preachiing to the
converted, but as saying to the congretation, "A new song will
soon be sung.  You may way to look at the words and tune."  No,
I have not yet written to my governmet of this topic, I'm
still working on my letters.

Jesse Coleman

RADSHOALS@AIRNET.NET