Re: Chernobyl in the Alps

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 08:58 04.05.98 -0500, you wrote:
>While in NYC over the weekend I heard a
>news item on the local "All News"
>station.
>
>The gist of it was that there is still a
>lot of radioactivity in the peaks of the
>Alps as a result of the Chernobyl
>accident and the mountain climbers,
>skiers, etc. ought to be concerned about
>it.
>
>Is this based on fact or just more
>hysteria ??
---------------------------------------------

I read the information mentioned by Tad Blanchard. There were no values
given. I read another - German - information on the web, which did not
state, which samples were analysed (!), but mentioned that "the samples"
had activity concentrations of up to 545.000 Bq/kg.

Well, the Alps have been contaminated during the fifties and sixties as
well as practically anything in the world by the atmospheric nuclear bomb
tests, so there was contamination there earlier. Since the aerosols from
the burning reactor were carried up to about 2000 meters before being
dispersed, it is not surprising that in these elevations also elevated
Cs-137 concentrations are found. The values of up to 545.000 Bq/kg (if it
is soil) is not consistent with our Austrian measurements - which I do not
have at hand. If it would be Bq/m2, then I could believe it, because the
highest contamination we have measured in Austria (which was heavily
affected by the Chernobyl accident) was in the range of 100 to 200 kBq/m2.
Such concentrations are locally confined and do not pose any hazard to
people from external radiation. 

The "study" was done by an organisation (?), which has the word
"independent" in the title. In the US information it was called "Center for
Research and Independent Information on Radioactivity", in the German
information (translated) "Commission for independent research and
information about radioactivity". If one reads the word "independent" you
can bet that there is some one-track minded "environmentalist" group behind. 

The measurement of 40 soil samples from the Alps in four countries cannot
be considered representative. Austrian institutions have done thousands of
soil samples if I remember correctly, I could look it up, but this seems
not to be representative for some groups, because the institutions involved
were federal institutes, universities and research institutes - with other
words: not independent. 

So this message is the way these messages always are: There is very little
fact (which is by the way already well known and published) and after
distorting, twisting and interpreting something comes out, which is
intended to create hysteria. Very often such publications are intended to
force for instance the government to finance the further anti-governmental
work of these groups.

Franz

 
Franz Schoenhofer
Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Department for Radiochemistry and Radioactivity of Food
Kinderspitalg. 15
A-1095 Vienna
AUSTRIA
tel.: +43-1-40491-520
fax.: +43-1-40491-540