Re: Risk in perspective- Ra-226/228 Mineral Water

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 12:06 05.08.1998 -0500, you wrote:


>Regarding Ra-226 and Ra-228 don't forget to emphasize the fact that these
>isotopes are present in all popular mineral waters, some to quite elevated
>levels.  

Stewart, 

I respectfully disagree. That radium isotopes are abundant is common
knowledge. The question is always "how much". I do not know, which brands
of mineral waters you investigated (I would be very interested to know!),
but from our intensive investigations I can say, that it clearly depends on
where the mineral water comes from. Moreover it  would be interesting to
know the definition of "mineral water" in the USA. Could you tell me
something about the legislation in the US? In Austria we have a limit from
the "drinking water codex alimentarius" of 0.122 Bq/l of Ra-226 (3.3 pCi/l)
in force. Only few mineral waters exceed this limit. I do not want to go
into details about the application of "limits" and "recommendations". 

Some years ago [1979, just after the TMI accident I sponsored a
>study of the Ra-226 and 228 content [measured by a beta, gamma coincinence
>procedure to yield excellent data]

May I have some details?

 of about 20 varieties of mineral water from
>around the world.

20 samples are not much

>
>I have the data in some dead files which I could dig out. 

Would you?

>
>This study data gathered documented that the Ra-226 dose to a regular drinker
>of mineral waters exceeded the dose from drinking the annual average liquid
>effluents from a BWR. Millions of our citizens spend billions of dollars a
>year to drink mineral waters with Ra-226, perceiving it to be a healthy
>alternative to tap water [with far lower radium content].

It might be an alternative when taking the regional different contamination
with nitrate, pesticides, herbicides etc. into account. Mineral water
consumption has become something like a status symbol in Europe (not
because of Ra-226!!!!), in spite of the fact that often tap water contains
much more healthy minerals than the so called mineral water. 

 These facts make
>some interesting perspectives likely to impact  preconceived ideas on the
>matter. 
>
>Of technical interest, the Ra-228 levels measured documented that there were
>some mineral waters where the Thorium decay series predominated and that
gross
>alpha measurements alone per EPA protocols were not sufficient to screen
water
>samples for potentially elevated radium content.

Thank you very much for this comment - because I have beenm fighting these
"gross" measurements since twenty years. As long as they are screening
levels this might be acceptable, but not if this would be a limit, like it
was proposed by the European Parliament in contradiction to the European
Commission. 



>
>
>Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
>Radium Experiment Assessment Project
>19 Stuart St.
>Pawtucket, RI 02860
>
>Phone: (401) 727-4947   Fax: (401) 727-2032   E-mail: radproject@usa.net
>website: http://customforum.com/carsreap
>
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>
Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

Office:
Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Department of Radiochemistry
Kinderspitalg. 15
A-1095 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-40 491 520
Fax.: +43-1-40 491 540
e-mail: schoenhofer@baluf.via.at
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