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RE: Latest Wash Post Article; Radioactive Ooze Found In Paducah
I appreciate your comments. I think that credibility is lost when inadequately
trained or poorly equipped inspectors respond to emergency situations, whether
it is radiological, chemical or biological. It is hard to restore a sense of
control of the situation and reassurance to the public.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Health Physicist
National Institutes of Health
Radiation Safety Branch, Building 21
21 Wilson Drive, MSC 6780
Bethesda, MD 20892-6780
Phone: 301-496-5774 Fax: 301-496-3544
jjacobus@exchange.nih.gov (W)
jenday@ix.netcom.com (H)
-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Messersmith [mailto:Hmessers@isdh.state.in.us]
Sent: September 01, 1999 9:50 AM
To: Jacobus, John (OD)
Subject: Re: Latest Wash Post Article; Radioactive Ooze Found In Paducah
In many counties in Indiana, for example, many county hazardous materials teams
have received training in radiological monitoring and radiation protection from
both our office and the State Emergency Management Agency. I believe that most
county hazmat teams in Indiana would be able to respond in a reasonable manner
to a alleged radiological incident, at least until people from my office could
arrive. The anecdote at the end of the story you linked to sounds like these
fellows either didn't know how to read their meters or had malfunctioning
meters. Especially if they were using some of the old civil defense meters,
calibration might have been a distant memory for the meters they were using.
On a side note, a coworker and I were once called to go to a landfill in rural
Indiana, because the local county sanitarian had found evidence of radioactive
contamination. When we arrived, we found that his old civil defense ion chamber
was sorely in need of a calibration. When we asked him about it, his comment
was "those little nobs on the inside? (the calibration POTS) Well, I just
fiddled with those to see what would happen." Needless to say, after a day of
walking all over an old landfill with local newspaper reporters hovering around,
we didn't find anything.
Hans J. Messersmith
hmessers@isdh.state.in.us
Indoor and Radiologic Health
Indiana State Department of Health
>>> "Jacobus, John (OD)" <JJacobus@exchange.nih.gov> 08/31 11:25 AM >>>
The anecdotal story at the end is a bit disturbing. Are "county disaster
worker(s)" trained in the use of meters?
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