RE: Contamination on WIPP waste container

[Glen.Vickers@ucm.com]

What are they surveying with?  Alpha proportional count of smears?  What is
a "minute amount"?  How was the contamination reported?  I've never heard
naturally occurring alpha problems with commercial nuclear transport casks.
Commercial casks probably travel 1E4 mi/yr with average distances of 600+
miles/trip.  I hope they're not looking for 1 dpm above a blank count.

Sincerely,
Glen Vickers
glen.vickers@ucm.com


 
	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Susan Gawarecki [SMTP:loc@icx.net]
	Sent:	Monday, June 28, 1999 10:04 AM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	Contamination on WIPP waste container

	It seems to me that the anti-WIPP faction would like to make a big
deal
	of something that is likely of natural origin and is far below any
	levels of concern anyway.  Carlsbad, NM, received tens of millions
of
	dollars to do background studies of the WIPP region and its people
	(through environmental monitoring and the "lie down and be counted"
	campaign), but they seem to have overlooked what might adhere to the
	outside of containers.  Since the TRUPAKs have traveled all over the
	country, you'd think they could have done some baseline scans on
them. 
	I know that plastic hard hats and polyester/nylon clothing will
attract
	radon; if the paint on the waste containers is a plastic-based
paint,
	perhaps it too would be susceptible.  Has anyone else looked at this
	possibility?  The degree of risk is so laughably small, it's a shame
to
	waste resources on it, but the public perception factor gives it
undue
	weight.

	My own opinion,
	Susan Gawarecki

	>- (NEW MEXICO) -- DOE officials have revised their  explanation
	>of how a minute amount of radioactive  contamination got on the
	>outside of a nuclear waste  container that was sent to WIPP. DOE
	>officials no  longer believe that a spot of radiation that
	>showed up  last Wednesday was polonium-210... a radioactive 
	>element that's a decay product of naturally occurring  radon
	>gas. But DOE officials still maintain that the  source of
	>contamination was naturally occurring  radiation, and not
	>radioactive waste. 
	-- 
	==================================================
	Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
	Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
	136 South Illinois Avenue, Suite 208
	Oak Ridge, Tennessee  37830
	Phone (423) 483-1333; Fax (423) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net
	VISIT OUR UPDATED WEB SITE:  http://www.local-oversight.org
	==================================================
	
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