RE: Scare tactics

["Lavera, Ron" <Ron.Lavera@nypa.gov>]

As an interesting aside, one of my compatriots told me that one of the
topics of discussion at one of the recent meetings was the impact of
NORM scavenging from geothermal power generation activities.  One of the
geothermal sites had several drums of radioactive sludge material that
they were looking to control/dispose.  I didn't hear anything about
potential airborne releases from the process ( where you have
radium/thorium you have radon etc. ).  Wonder what the EPA will have to
say about this.

...  mine and mine alone ...

Ron LaVera
lavera.r@nypa.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Flood [mailto:bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU]
Sent: Monday, February 08, 1999 4:48 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Scare tactics


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

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