Re: Radioactive Cobalt Is In Cove -Comment

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/6/99 10:38:50 AM Eastern Standard Time,
FLORYCA@GWSMTP.NU.COM writes:

<< Subj:	 Radioactive Cobalt Is In Cove
 Date:	3/6/99 10:38:50 AM Eastern Standard Time
 From:	FLORYCA@GWSMTP.NU.COM (CLAUDE A. FLORY)
 Sender:	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
 Reply-to:	<A HREF="mailto:radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu";>
radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu</A>
 To:	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu (Multiple recipients of list)
 
 Local paper picked up on trace amount of Co-60 found in cove adjacent to
 Millstone (see below).  If the measurements are accurate, it amounts to about
 0.1 to 0.4 pCi/gram of sediment to a 6 inch depth.  We communicated the
results
 of our shellfish samples to Allan Jacgues, the businessman who leases the
 shellfish beds.  Except for some oysters, no plant related activity has been
 seen in clams, oysters, mussels, and lobsters collected in Jordon Cove and
 other areas around Millstone.  Oysters collected in the quarry, our discharge
 canal, routinely see plant related activity.  Barely detectable activity has
 been seen in seaweed, sediment, and oysters in the vicinity of discharge to
 Long Island Sound. 
  >>

Dear Claude:
I recall when I was at Yankee Atomic in the late 1970s as their REMP
specialist, I was asked to provide some assistance to NU to a finding [as I
recall] of Mn-54 in the exo-skeletons of lobsters sampled near Millstone.

The activity showed up, mixed up in some way with the chitinous exoskeleton
[shell] and not detectable in the meat. For some reason the lobsters were
being analyzed whole, after they were crushed and blended, and not just for
activity in their meat.

It's quite clear that low levels of plant related radioactivity in a pathway
like sediment or lobster shells can create quite a stir with members of the
public. Maine Yankee used to have a real problem with concerns by worm
harvesters because the mudflats near the plant had seen a buildup of plant
related activity. The dose to wormdiggers was only a mR or so per year direct
radiation, to a small number of diggers, as I recall which made it the
critical pathway for the plant at the time.

The only issue I've ever seen where the public was able to step back and not
get spun up about fission related radionuclides [due to nuclear testing in the
1960s] in the environment is with the survey I initiated in 1990-91 about
Cs-137 in woodash. Cs-137 levels were measured at up to 30 pCi/gm of ash in FL
with about 20 pCi/gm in the Northeast. Organic gardeners routinely put wood
ash from their own fireplaces on their home gardens to grow vegetables which
creates a pathway for this Cs-137 to be taken up by crops and ingested.

Woodash from wood burning power plants was also being used on a commercial
scale to grow organic crops at commercial farms in the Northeast Kingdom of
Vermont. Yet the organic farming community was able to rationalize that the
dose was only a few mR/yr at most and therefore no big concern.  It all
depends on whose "ox is getting gored" as they say.

Glad to read that things are moving along toward restoring full operations at
Millstone. 

Regards,

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project
19 Stuart St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860

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