Re: U.S. Orders Probe Of Plutonium Exposure - Report

[William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com>]

The inhalation ALI for Pu-239 is 6 E-3 uCi which is less than 0.1 micrograms, so
even if the amounts are "pretty small," the potential for damage is there.
Considering that the material was probably handled in kg quantities, and if the
article stating that there was visible dust from the process is even partly
true, a worker not practicing good radiological controls could have easily
inhaled several ALI's in a year, even if the Pu is a trace concentration.

As I stated before, now is not the time for a knee jerk, 1. ready 2. fire 3. aim
response.  Let's wait for better information.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.  (Bill Richardson knows this, do you?)

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com

"Weiner, Ruth" wrote:

> Apparently what Paducah processed was uranium oxide recovered from the
> Hanford plutonium extraction facility.  In the early 1950s, I believe the
> extraction was done with t-butyl phosphate, so recovered U compounds would
> contain small amounts of Pu.  Considering that the idea of the Pu extraction
> was to extract as much Pu as possible, those amounts would have to have been
> pretty small.
>
> Clearly only my own opinion
>
> Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
> Sandia National Laboratories
> MS 0718, POB 5800
> Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
> 505-844-4791; fax 505-844-0244
> rfweine@sandia.gov
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: antatnsu@pacbell.net [mailto:antatnsu@pacbell.net]
> Sent: Monday, August 09, 1999 1:17 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Re: U.S. Orders Probe Of Plutonium Exposure - Report
>
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> I couldn't agree more.  But, what I'd like to know is where the plutonium
> came
> from, how much of it there was, what the concentration of Pu in U was and
> what
> controls were there.  I suppose the investigation will tell us in a couple
> of
> years.  But there must be some information we can get before then (I hope).
> Al
> Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net
>
> William V Lipton wrote:
>
> > My advice to all RADSAFER's:
> >
> > Don't knee jerk this.  From my experience working at a DOE facility, this
> story
> > is credible.  At the facility where I worked, many of the chemists did not
> > consider natural uranium to be radioactive, and tended to handle it
> without
> > radiological controls.  In a sense they were correct, since, for natural
> or
> > depleted uranium, the chemical hazards (it's toxic to the kidneys) overide
> the
> > radiological hazards.  It was a problem for me, however, since the
> facility
> > also handled Pu.  So when I found loose alpha contamination, I had to
> assume
> > that it was Pu until proven otherwise.  It's credible to me that at a
> facility
> > which handled only uranium, radiological controls would be minimal.  If
> the
> > workers were not aware that there was Pu contamination, there could be
> some
> > serious uptakes.
> >
> > We should refrain from considering this to be antinuke propaganda until
> more
> > information is available.
> >
>
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