Re: Southerly Waste Water Treatment Plant

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

But "political and public perceptions" are driven by misrepresentations
and extreme responses of regulators and policy-makers that falsely tell
them "any radiation is a risk".  Don't blame the public, politicians,
and media for simply believing what they are told - by US.  Southerly
was taken for $2M by the regulators, not the "public".

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
muckerheide@mediaone.net
========================

James Reese wrote:
> 
> 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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