RE: Contamination on WIPP waste container

["Reynolds, Harold" <harold.reynolds@rfets.gov>]

My guess it that it is Pb-212 from coal plant emissions along the route.

Harry
Harold.Reynolds@RFETS.gov

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Glen.Vickers%ucm.com@inet.rfets.gov
> [SMTP:Glen.Vickers%ucm.com@inet.rfets.gov]
> Sent:	Monday, June 28, 1999 2:33 PM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	RE: Contamination on WIPP waste container
> 
> 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
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