Re: Asking for opinions -Reply

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

Your response raises more questions than it answers:

Do you only let annual TLD's go home?  If all TLD's go home what about your
higher exposure workers?  I question the wisdom of an annual TLD.  Normal
fading would seem to raise validity questions.

How do you handle the fading issue for higher exposure employees?

There are a lot of lawyers out there who would love to hear about  you.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com

L_K_II_Les_Aldrich@RL.gov wrote:

> I've been working at this site for 20 years and have been responsible
> for the external dosimetry program for most of the site for the last 3
> years.  We have been taking our dosimeters home for that entire period,
> and I don't see any evidence of loss of control.

...

>
>
> With 5,000+ employees wearing dosimeters, we average 5-10 cases a year
> where non-occupational doses show up on the dosimeters.  In addition,
> there are 15-20 employees who wear their dosimeters to work immediately
> after having medical radionuclide injections - those are easy to detect,
> they set off every portal monitor they get close to.
>
> I once did a calculation on the hot dashboard fade for one of our annual
> dosimeters, based on temperatures encountered on dashboards in this
> area, and concluded that we lose, at most, 60% of the recorded dose.
> Only employees expected to receive 100-200 mrem/y wear annual
> dosimeters, so the lost dose would be between 60 and 120 mrem, maximum.

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