Re: Southerly Waste Water Treatment Plant

["James Reese" <james.reese@worldnet.att.net>]

As most of us know, political and public perceptions drive these types of
issues much more than sound scientific reasoning.  I am not familiar with
the situation but I would bet that it hit the papers hard.  When this
happens and the regulators and politicians are left red-faced, someone
usually pays.  This time it was Southerly Plant.

Just my own thoughts.

James H. Reese
Health Physicist
(916) 689-2680 tel.
(916) 689-6270 fax
----- Original Message -----
From: Karam, Andrew <Andrew_Karam@URMC.Rochester.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 1999 6:52 PM
Subject: Southerly Waste Water Treatment Plant


> The risk posed by the Southerly Plant was minimal.  While working with the
> State of Ohio I calculated a maximum possible dose (assuming a person was
> lying on the hottest spot located continually from the date of deposition
> until they died of old age) of 14 rem.  The max credible dose was less
than
> one rem.  At one meeting I attended and NRC representative suggested
taking
> no actions because the remaining Co-60 would remain under institutional
> controls for at least another 50 years and the risk did not justify the
cost
> of remediation.  Nevertheless, the decision was made to perform some
> remediation that ended up costing Southerly about $2 million.  I am not
> exactly sure why this decision was reached; it was after I left ODH.
>
> The site was discovered by accident during a flyover survey for a
> neighboring U-contaminated site (Chemetron, for anyone who's interested).
> Until that survey, in 1990, I think, nobody had any idea that the Co was
> there.  After reviewing all of the NRC licensees in the Southerly service
> area, Picker (then Advanced Medical Systems) was determined to be the only
> licensee who possessed enough Co-60 to have caused this problem.  My
> recollection is that we decided some of it was likely released during one
> incident and some of as permitted discharges over time.  One sanitary
sewer
> manway near the Picker plant had relatively high rad levels inside,
although
> I can't remember how high. Multiple mr/hr, perhaps higher.
>
> I'm not sure what happened at Picker or AMS prior to 1990 or after 1992,
> when I left ODH.  However, I am quite sure that the money spent did not
> appreciably improve public health and safety.  In addition, I think it's
> safe to say that, even though Picker's discharges were not physically
> harmful, they ended up being financially harmful to Southerly.
>
> Andy
>
> Andrew_Karam@urmc.rochester.edu
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