RE: Low levels environmental

["Hooda, Benny" <HoodaB@wipp.carlsbad.nm.us>]

Thanks to everyone who helped me, hopefully, I will be able to convince some
folks with this information. Thanks again.


> ----------
> From: 	Kjell Johansen[SMTP:kjell.johansen@wepco.com]
> Sent: 	Thursday, September 30, 1999 11:05 AM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	RE: Low levels environmental
> 
> You should definitely continue to use negative values in your
> statistical analyses.  Not only does DOE/EH 0173T recommend it but this
> recommendation goes back to August of 1980 when the HPS Committee Report
> HPSR-1 (1980) "Upgrading Environmental Radiation Data" which was
> released as EPA 520/1-80-012 recommended using all values as measure,
> whether negative or positive.  I strongly recommend Section 6 which was
> written by a group who came from various regulatory and scientific
> bodies as ( EPA, NRC, NBS, DOE, ORNL, EML) as well as others (Alabama
> Power Co, State of Illinois, and Idaho Falls).  If you have looked at
> the latest ANSI standards in the HPS Newsletter, you will notice that
> all bioassay standards also recommend reporting and using negative
> numbers in statistical analyses.
> 
> I think that the push to use <MDA for negative values arises from the
> perceived problem of having to explain "negative" radioactivity to the
> public should the need so arise.  However, in the end, I believe that we
> must insist on good statistical procedures to obtain at good science.  
> 
> I have been using negative numbers in our REMP for several years.  If I
> make a frequency plot of the airborne I-131 data I get a fairly nice
> bell shaped curve around zero.  Just what I'd expect based on our I-131
> emissions.  Also, the averages for all of the I-131 results are not
> different from zero.  If I threw away the negative numbers, I would get
> a positive average.  
> 
> I believe that EPA 520/1-80-012 still is available from NITS.  I suggest
> that you show Section 6 of this and all of the other relavent and
> supporting standards to whomever is asking you to substitute MDAs for
> negataive numbers to back up your use of negative numbers.   
> 
> Kjell Johansen, Ph.D.
> kjell.johansen@wepco.com
> Sr. Radiological Engineer
> Wisconsin Electric Power Co.
> Milwaukee, WI
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