Re: INS Laundry - Related Topic

["Tsurikov, Nick" <nick.tsurikov@iluka.com>]

Dear Hans,

I would like to put forward an example:

Let's say that there was some radium-226 detected in the river nearby.  
Both radium-226 ions in a river that were washed off from the pile of
fertiliser on a farm and radium-226 ions in the same river that were
discharged from a 'nuclear facility' upstream are exactly the same.  
However, in the first instance radium in water is not 'regulated' and in the
second one it is.  

Therefore, radium ions from a 'nuclear installation' are gaining some
special magic powers to harm a farmer much more than the ones from the
fertiliser.

I think that it could not be proven 'beyond reasonable doubt' that radium in
water is from a 'nuclear installation'.  - Just have a farm upstream
somewhere and that's it.

This is an another perfect illustration for the book, which I rather enjoyed
reading:
"The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America" by Philip Howard
(available from Amazon.com within 24 hours).  
(Nothing about radiation though - just  general stuff, but very educational
for me Down Under)

Kind regards
Nick Tsurikov
Eneabba, Western Australia
http://www.westnet.net.au/Walkabout/


----------
From:  Oldewage, Hans D[SMTP:HDOLDEW@sandia.gov]
Sent:  Tuesday, 20 July 1999 3:05
To:  Multiple recipients of list
Subject:  INS Laundry - Related Topic

Just a second while I get my soapbox - 
Santa Fe is doing now what the City of Albuquerque did years ago.
Albuquerque's sewer use ordinance prohibits the discharge of radioactive
waste (no definition) to the sanitary sewer system.  Hospitals and medical
clinics are exempt from the prohibition.  Why are they exempt?  I don't
know.  Anyway, Sandia National Labs and DOE have decided that the ordinance
is not worth fighting.  We want to be good neighbors (read "conflict-free
neighbors").  For some reason, several years ago the city even contracted a
health physicist to study the impact of, and propose changes to, the
ordinance that would allow discharging up to some fraction of the NRC or DOE
standards.  He did a great job and drafted a very workable ordinance.
Unfortunately, some portion of our City Council is up for reelection just
about every year, and this potato is too hot for those politicians to
address, so it remains tabled.

Of course, with no lower limit attached to the ordinance, we are forced to
fumble around with waste water with analytical results hovering around the
critical level.  Trying to decide if there's really activity there or not,
etc.  And if the answer is that there is (or may be) DOE-added radioactivity
in the waste, then it gets handled as radioactive waste. It's a huge waste
of time and taxpayer money, with absolutely no quantifiable benefit to
public health, but what's new?   

The sad part, other than wasting money of course, is that our collective
lack of will in fighting this ordinance only promotes the perceptions that
1) any exposure to radiation, no matter how small, poses a risk; 2) that the
risk from exposure to radiation, no matter how small, is worth spending any
amount of money to avoid; and 3) that the risk from radiation varies somehow
with who delivers the dose (be it God, the government, the doctors, etc.).
Good job.

Three cheers for INS.  I hope they win their law suit.  Maybe somebody in
our management, DOE, or in city government will take notice.

Obviously only my opinion... 
=====================
Hans Oldewage
Sandia National Laboratories
505-845-7728
hdoldew@sandia.gov


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