Re: Scare tactics

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 02:23 PM 2/8/99 -0600, you wrote:
>
>The drinking water of 20 million people has been contaminated with
>radioactive uranium, according to a government watchdog organization. 
>
>Toxins from a closed uranium mine have been leaking into the Colorado River
>at levels 530 times higher than government standards.

I had a great deal of expereince with a uranium mill decommissioning
project in the 80's and can say with some assurance uranium isn't the
problem. These mills were built to EXTRACT the uranium - it's pretty much
all gone. What's left in the tailings are the remainders of the uranium
decay chain that were also in the ore with the uranium. From a dose
perspective, radium dominates the mix of remaining stuff.

So if someone is detecting high levels of uranium downstream (530 times
some government standard), I would be quick to look somewhere else besides
the old uranium mill for the source.


---------
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html