Re: Cs-137 in wood ash

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

In a message dated 98-07-08 15:39:45 EDT, you write:

<< Subj:	 RE: Cs-137 in wood ash
 Date:	98-07-08 15:39:45 EDT
 From:	lamothee@aecl.ca (Lamothe, Emelie)
 Sender:	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
 Reply-to:	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
 To:	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu (Multiple recipients of list)
 
 I was asked to draft an information document for local physicians in the
 event of a radiological emergency at Chalk River.  In particular, I was
 asked to talk about the "worried-well" syndrome. I was wanting to help
 put radiation doses to the public into perspective.  Wood ash seemed
 like a good example to include because a lot of people (close to 85%)
 use wood stoves as a important source of heating in this almost all bush
 and farming county where Chalk River is located.
 
 Emelie
 
 > ----------
 > From: 	RADPROJECT@aol.com[SMTP:RADPROJECT@aol.com]
 > Sent: 	Wednesday, July 08, 1998 2:38 PM
 > To: 	Multiple recipients of list
 > Subject: 	Re: Cs-137 in wood ash
 > 
 > In a message dated 98-07-08 10:32:23 EDT, you write:
 > 
 > << I know that at some point this was posted on radsafe and the copy
 > that I
 >  saved, well...I guess I hit delete instead of save.  How much Cs-137
 > is
 >  in wood ash and what is the average annual dose from burning wood for
 >  heat in a typical home?
 >  
 >  Emelie Lamothe
 >  lamothee@aecl.ca >>
 > 
 > My earlier post on this subject did not address an estimate regarding
 > the dose
 > from  burning wood in a home, but a simple calculation from the use of
 > ash as
 > a fertilizer to grow vegetables and gras, raise cows, feed livestock,
 > etc.
 > 
 > Cs-137 concentration in woodash from domestic burning ranges from
 > about 300
 > pCi/kg of ash from CA to about 33,000 pCi/kg of ash in Northern
 > Florida. One
 > could calculate exposure to wooddust in cleaning out a fireplace or
 > exposure
 > to a certain mass of woodash containg Cs-137 at any level due to
 > direct
 > radiation.
 > 
 > There was a lengthy article on the Cs-137 issue in the Eganville
 > Leader
 > (Canada) on Jan. 8, 1992, written by Ray Stamplecoski. The articles
 > title:
 > "Radioactive trees, wood ash traced to nuclear bomb test --U.S
 > researcher
 > finds ash thats 100 times more radioactive than levels of radiation
 > releases
 > prohibited at nuclear power stations." Another artilce in this
 > collection was
 > titled: "Survey Implications for the Ottawa Valley --"Is it time to
 > kiss your
 > ash goodbye?" --U.S. physicist.
 > 
 > The issue of wood ash from northern Florida having the highest Cs-137
 > levels
 > of any samples I've analyzed raises a potentially important issue of
 > current
 > note. The current forest fires raging in Florida have  reduced hundres
 > of
 > thousands of acres of  trees and vegetation to ash. A wildfile can
 > release
 > more than 5 percent of the ash generated into the air. Given a certain
 > areal
 > density of vegetation, and assuming that there will be an ash fraction
 > of
 > about 1% vs total wood weight, and that about 5% or more of the ash
 > generated
 > will become airborne you can derive a Cs-137 airborne areal source
 > term that
 > will be dispersed from a wildfire. The dose from this pathway in the
 > FL case
 > is likely to be small, but it could easily  lead to elevated levels of
 > Cs-137
 > being picked up in environmental air monitoring programs near nuclear
 > plants
 > unrelated to plant operations or detected in samples collected from
 > any other
 > air monitoring network.
 > 
 > This pathway was clearly documented at much  higher levels 5 or 6
 > years ago in
 > wildfires in the environment around Chernobyl when Cs-137 fixed in
 > trees from
 > the original accident was re-dispersed over a very wide area.
 > 
 > In 1991 when I presented my first paper on this subject: "Cs-137 in
 > Woodash
 > -Results of  Nationwide Survey" at the HPS Annual meeting in
 > Washington, DC
 > and dozens of news articles resulted, I got some interesting phone
 > calls about
 > this matter. One caller said he read of the Cs-137 issue in  "Garbage"
 > magazine ["Fallout from the Fireplace", Nov/Dec 1991] and was a
 > "Compose
 > Officer" from Toronto, Canada. He said he was concerned what might
 > happen if
 > woodash was used in compost since the article in Garbage said to keep
 > wood ash
 > out of the compost pile [I never spoke to Garbage and never said
 > this].  At
 > first I thought this call from a "Compost Office" was some kind of
 > prank call
 > by a friend since I didn't believe there was really a magazine called
 > "Garbage" or that there were jobs titled "Compost Officers". I was
 > wrong on
 > both counts and Compost Officers do exist in Canada.
 > 
 > Another caller from Canada was concerned because he was a chimney
 > sweep and
 > was worried that Cs-137 in the creosote buildup in chimneys might
 > present a
 > risk to him in his occupational exposure to it. I was able to give him
 > some
 > perspective that his major concern by far was his exposure to
 > polycyclic
 > aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and other organic carcinogens in the
 > creosote not
 > Cs-137. I told him a bit about the history of epidemiology and the
 > initial
 > documentation of a high rate of scrotal cancer in English chimney
 > sweeps in a
 > study by Dr. Percival Potts hundrends of years ago. I also have some
 > data on
 > Cs-137/K-40 levels  in creosote  vs. woodash on the same home which
 > shows some
 > interesting fractionation, but that is another story.
 > 
 > The issue of NORM, and NARM, and TENR [Technologically enhanced
 > natural
 > radioactivity] have all received attention. However, Cs-137 in wood
 > ash
 > whether from a home fireplace or stove or commercial woodburning
 > boilers like
 > in power production or the pulp and paper industry produce millions of
 > tons of
 > technologically enhanced fission product radioactivity [TEFPR  as an
 > acronym??] in the ash generated
 > 
 > Overall, I found my interactions with interested news and
 > environmental
 > publications and private individuals on the Cs-137 in woodash issue to
 > have
 > been very productive, in that it gave me a chance to make certain
 > points in
 > numerous popular press news articles about relative risks of radiation
 > vs.
 > other agents and the inconsistency in regulating radioactivity in
 > nuclear and
 > hospital waste streams vs. other waste streams that contain elevated
 > levels of
 > weapons test fallout. The greatest antipathy to discussing the  Cs-137
 > in
 > woodash issue came surprisingly from nuclear utilities  which felt it
 > best not
 > to discuss anthing about radioactivity in the environment with any
 > members of
 > the public because it would do nothing but scare or confuse them. It
 > seems the
 > root problem is that nuclear utilities and their public spokesperson
 > tend to
 > think the public is too simple to really understand radiation issues,
 > and that
 > rather that deal with the deep public interest about radiation matters
 > on a
 > meaningful basis, it is best to just avoid interactions, keep a low
 > profile,
 > and just do the job of generating power. I believe this policy is
 > fundamentally flawed and has proven to be nothing more than suicide on
 > the
 > installment plan.
 > 
 > Almost every publication of the dozens I dealt with on the Cs-137 in
 > woodash
 > issue, including Organic Gardening Magazine [New Ground Feature on the
 > latest
 > research: "Is Wood Ash A Nuclear Worry?, p. 18-19, Jan 1992] by Rodale
 > Press
 > gave me a chance to critique the final articles and correct technical
 > errors
 > or sometimes inflamatory statements without my having to have demanded
 > upfront
 > that they give me this priviledge [which would have killed any
 > coverage].
 > Organic Gardening's first draft said my claims about minimal risk due
 > to
 > Cs-137 in woodash might be considered an attempt to focus attention on
 > radioactivity in the natural environment because of pressure vessel
 > embrittlement problems at a nuclear plant in Western Mass!!!
 > 
 > At the time of Organic Gardening drafting its feature article, I was
 > Operations Support Manager for a central environmental lab run by a
 > New
 > England utility nuclear service division, which also operated a
 > nuclear plant
 > in Western Massachusetts. The parent nuclear utility company was
 > having to
 > deal with neutron embrittlement of the pressure vessel at the Rowe
 > Nuclear
 > plant. Initially Organic Gardening wrote my statements about Cs-137
 > dose and
 > risk being minimal  might be a whitewash of the potential that the
 > pressure
 > vessel of this older generation plant "might fracture in an accident
 > contaminating an area the size of Pennsylvania".  I was able to
 > convince the
 > editor that this comment was a "cheap shot". I told Organic Gardening
 > I was
 > an environmental radiation and public health scientist and that I had
 > nothing
 > to do with the engineering side of the utility. Further, my first
 > raising the
 > issue of  woodash radioactivity went back to the mid-1980s as did my
 > initial
 > measurements of Cs-137 in woodash-- at a time I was not employed by
 > the
 > utility in question or any utility.  Fortunately, the final article in
 > Organic
 > Gardening changed their comments about a China Syndrome like scenario
 > to read
 > on this point:
 > 
 >      "Farber acknowledges that some have questioned his good
 > intentions here.
 > He notes, with a laugh, that he has been accused of using his report
 > to focus
 > attention on radioactivity in the natural environment in order to
 > "whitewash"
 > concerns about radioactive waste disposal.
 >       Farber stresses that although he does work for a nuclear power
 > company,
 > his wood ash study is neither endorsed by nor fundded by Yankee
 > Atomic, and
 > that several independent radiation specialists are not investigating
 > this
 > issue as well.
 >      Stay tunes. We'll make it our business to bring you any further
 > good
 > science on this, uh "burning" issue."
 > 
 > Organic Gardening in answering its own question  "Is Wood Ash A
 > Nuclear Worry?
 > by stating that wood ash :
 >      "....is likely to contribute no more that [sic] about 1 millirem
 > per year
 > [from Cs-137] of additional radiation to an individual eating
 > vegetables,
 > milk,  and meat raised on wood-ash contaminated fields."
 >      "To put that number in perspective, the average dose of
 > 'background'
 > radiation that we each receive 'from environmental sources' is 360
 > millirems
 > per year. So woodash fertlilizer does not seem to pose a large
 > radioactive
 > risk."
 > 
 > If a societal consensus could be reached among enviromental interests
 > that an
 > increment of 1 millirem per year from fission products "does not seem
 > to pose
 > a large radioactive risk." we would be well on our way to defining de
 > minimus
 > and nuclear interests being able to license nuclear waste disposal
 > sites.
 > Perhaps by taking  Organic Gardening's statements at face value on the
 > CS-137
 > dose/risk issue as a precedent we can begin to discuss the issue more
 > rationally with the public.
 > 
 > What this one case makes clear is that the only way to get any
 > interest to
 > think about what constitutes an "acceptable" level of risk, is to
 > connect the
 > risk factor to something the individual can relate to. With woodash
 > Cs-137 we
 > are dealing with a fission product in a waste stream the individual
 > often
 > generates and uses as a fertilizer. We are not dealing with natural
 > isotopes
 > vs. fission products or radiation risks vs. other types of risks. 
 > 
 > When I posed the tongue-in-cheek question: "Woodburners and organic
 > farmers
 > --Is it time to kiss your ash goodbye?" I was not trying to convince
 > anyone of
 > anything, but simply posing a legitimate question. Would an individual
 > homeower, because Cs-137 is present in woodash from domestic
 > woodburning at
 > levels of 20,000 pCi/kg [the typical levels in northern New England
 > and
 > Canada] be willing to spend  $200 per cu.ft. to dispose of the
 > woodash. What
 > would this disposal cost do to the economics of domestic woodburning.
 > Industrial woodburning generated 905,000 tons of ash (63%) and
 > residential
 > woodburning about 543,000 tons of the total of 1,446,000 tons of total
 > woodash
 > produced in the US in 1989. As Science News reported ["Wood ash: The
 > unregulated radwaste"]: 
 > 
 >      "if ash were subject to the same regulations, he says [ as
 > low-level
 > nuclear waste streams] its disposal would cost U.S. wood burners more
 > than $30
 > billion [at 1991 prices] annually."
 > 
 > These kinds of comparisons get peoples attention and make both
 > homeowners and
 > industrial woodburners stop and suddently think about what is sensible
 > when it
 > comes to regulating low-level nuclear waste streams. 
 > 
 > The Cs-137 in wood ash issue and the potential pathways of exposure to
 > the
 > public was raised by critics in 1991 concerning the licensing of a 50
 > MW(e)
 > wood burning power plant in Killingly, CT. I was retained as an expert
 > witness
 > by the host city of Killingly on the licensing of this plant and
 > testified at
 > a DEM hearing on environmental impacts. I developed a basic sampling
 > protocol
 > to characterize the radiological impacts of this plant which the
 > developer
 > vehemently opposed conducting. Before the issue was settled, the State
 > of
 > Connecticut voted to approved an $18 million buyout deal by Northeast
 > Utlities
 > to payoff the private developer for sunk costs to cancel the project
 > at that
 > moment rather than complete the $70 million dollar project.   
 > 
 > I was later told by the Attorney for the developer who cross-examined
 > me very
 > harshly about my report as to characterizing the radiological impacts
 > of this
 > wood fired power plant [which I testified were likely to be small but
 > never
 > adequately measured to date] that the radioactivity issue was the
 > "nail in the
 > coffin" for the project. Killing the Killingly project was certainly
 > not my
 > intention, but perhaps resulted in some corporate non-nuclear
 > interests
 > appreciating the impact which undue concern about low-level
 > radioactivity can
 > have on industrial operations, perhaps even their own.
 > 
 > 
 > Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
 > Consulting Scientist
 > Public Health Sciences
 > 19 Stuart St.
 > Pawtucket, RI 02860
 > 
 > Phone: (401) 727-4947   Fax: (401) 727-2032   E-mail:
 > radproject@usa.net
 > 
 > 
 
 
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