Radioactive Facilities

This section is included because residents, stakeholders, and regulators may overlook radioactive material. Many military sites used, stored, or disposed of radioactive substances, including the newer depleted uranium anti-tank shells, in addition to atomic bombs and demolition devices. Equipment is now available, that can make quick, accurate, and cheap surveys just to verify the absence of this hazard. 

Recently, DOD Usted 400 atomic weapon test sites. The author does not know if this Ust includes all atomic weapon storage facilities or ocean dumpsites. Although the cleanup of nuclear facilities is a function of the Department of Energy (states and local government entities only have authority over medical radioactivity), locating and defining radioactive contamination is still a proper role for these entities. 

A second area of potential concern would be ranges in which spent uranium anti-tank shells were used. These may not be a concern when unfired and intact. However, evidence now suggests that when pulverized into dust after hitting an armored target, the radioactive dust can be inhaled and ingested. Even non-penetrating radiation such as alpha particles may be dangerous once it enters the body. 

atomic bomb tests in the west may have contaminated areas later used as ranges for conventional ordnance. Radioactive elements in the early atom bombs have a half-life of 12,000 years. Thus, these areas are just about as radioactive now as they were 60 years ago. Ranges in suspected atomic bomb test plumes should be surveyed prior to ordnance recovery work. Radio assay of groundwater or drinking water also requires substantial expertise. 

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According to Baeza et al. (1994), the radioactive contamination of sea and land in the Antarctic regions derives from the fallout of atmospheric atomic explosions executed since 1945, apart from emissions made by nuclear and radioactive facilities. The authors examined samples of U. antartica collected near the Spanish Antarctic Base, Juan Carlos I, situated on Livingston Island in the South Shetland archipelago in... 

The Role of the Monitored Retrievable Storage Facility in an Integrated Waste Management System, DOE/RW-0238, Office of Civihan Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., 1989. 

M. R. English, Siting Eow-Eevel Radioactive Waste Disposal Facilities The Public Poliy Dilemma, Quomm Books, New York, 1992. 

In the past, hazardous wastes were often grouped into the following categories (1) radioactive substances, (2) chemicals, (3) biological wastes, (4) flammable wastes, and (5) explosives. The chemical cate-goiy included wastes that were corrosive, reactive, and toxic. The principal sources of hazardous biological wastes are hospitals and biological-research facilities. 

NAA is well suited for Si semiconductor impurities analysis. The sensitivity and the bulk mode of analysis make this an important tool for controlling trace impurities during crystal growth or fer monitoring cleanliness of various processing operations for device manufacturing. It is expected that research reactors will ser e as the central analytical facilities for NAA in the industry. Since reactors are already set up to handle radioactive materials and waste, this makes an attractive choice over installing individual facilities in industries. 

Deactivation and D D actions can range from stabilization of multiple hazards at a single site or facilities containing chemical or radioactive contamination, or both, to routine asbestos and lead abatement in a nonindustrial structure. Strategies include programs that meet compliance objectives, protect workers, and make certain that productivity and cost-effectiveness are maintained. The content and extent of health and safety-related programs should be proportionate to the types and degrees of hazards and risks associated with specific operations. 

FIRAC is a computer code designed to estimate radioactive and chemical source-terms as.sociaied with a fire and predict fire-induced flows and thermal and material transport within facilities, especially transport through a ventilation system. It includes a fire compartment module based on the FIRIN computer code, which calculates fuel mass loss rates and energy generation rates within the fire compartment. A second fire module, FIRAC2, based on the CFAST computer code, is in the code to model fire growth and smoke transport in multicompartment stmetures. 

The current prototype code, is included because of being knowledge-based and its potential relevance for chemical releases. Presently, it calculates doses and consequences to facility workers from accidental releases of radioactive material. This calculation includes specifying material at risk and worker evacuation schemes, and calculating airborne release, flows between rooms, filtration, deposition, concentrations of released materials at various locations and worker exposures. 

Chun, M. K. et. al., 1989, User s Manual for FTRIN - A Computer Code to Estimate Accidental Fire and Radioactive Airborne Releases in Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities, NUREG/CR 30 (PNL-4S 32). PNL, February. 

In the production of TNT from the reaction between toluene and mixed acids (nitric/sulfuric), TeNMe forms in amounts between 0.2—0.4% of the total wt of TNT. This TeNMe has been held responsible for several expins which have occurred in TNT plants, causing fatal injuries to personnel and severe damage to facilities. These expins were attributed to the presence of TeNMe in the acid fume lines and the acid storage tanks. Mixts of TeNMe and readily oxidizable materials are known to form very powerful and sensitive expl mixts. Since TeNMe is also isolated from the nitration of Nitrobenzene (NB), the TeNMe formed in the nitration of toluene may arise from the oxidation of the aromatic ring and/or methyl group. In an effort to gain more informa-. tion on the origin of TeNMe from TNT production, radioactive carbon-14 (14C) was used as a tracer to determine the extent to which each of the carbon atoms in the toluene skeleton of the various nitro-substituted isomers contributes to... 

Sflf-Test 13.8B Soil at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Processing Facility in Colorado was found to be contaminated with radioactive plutonium-239, which has a half-life of 24 ka (2.4 X 104 years). The soil was loaded into drums for storage. How many years must pass before the radioactivity drops to 20.% of its initial value ... 

Half-lives span a very wide range (Table 17.5). Consider strontium-90, for which the half-life is 28 a. This nuclide is present in nuclear fallout, the fine dust that settles from clouds of airborne particles after the explosion of a nuclear bomb, and may also be present in the accidental release of radioactive materials into the air. Because it is chemically very similar to calcium, strontium may accompany that element through the environment and become incorporated into bones once there, it continues to emit radiation for many years. About 10 half-lives (for strontium-90, 280 a) must pass before the activity of a sample has fallen to 1/1000 of its initial value. Iodine-131, which was released in the accidental fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, has a half-life of only 8.05 d, but it accumulates in the thyroid gland. Several cases of thyroid cancer have been linked to iodine-131 exposure from the accident. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24 ka (24000 years). Consequently, very long term storage facilities are required for plutonium waste, and land contaminated with plutonium cannot be inhabited again for thousands of years without expensive remediation efforts. 

FIGURE 17.30 This 35-year-old drum of radioactive waste has corroded and leaked radioactive materials into the soil. The drum was located in one of the nuclear waste disposal sites at the U.S. Department of Energy s Hanford, Washington, nuclear manufacturing and research facility. Several storage sites at this facility have become seriously contaminated. 

Air monitoring will be required, e.g., when volatiles are handled in quantity, where use of radioactive isotopes has led to unacceptable workplace contamination, when processing plutonium or other transuranic elements, when handling unsealed sources in hospitals in therapeutic amounts, and in the use of hot cells/reactors and critical facilities. Routine monitoring of skin, notably the hands, may be required. 

The nuclear explosions that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 100,000 to 200,000 people instantaneously. Probably an equal number died later, victims of the radiation released in those explosions. Millions of people were exposed to the radioactivity released by the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The full health effects of that accident may never be known, but 31 people died of radiation sickness within a few weeks of the accident, and more than 2000 people have developed thyroid cancer through exposure to radioactive iodine released in the accident. Even low levels of radiation can cause health problems. For this reason, workers in facilities that use radioisotopes monitor their exposure to radiation continually, and they must be rotated to other duties if their total exposure exceeds prescribed levels. 

Although the radioactive isotope H has been extensively used for studies on the uptake of xenobiotics into whole cells, the intrusion of exchange reactions and the large isotope effect renders this isotope rather less straightforward for metabolic studies. Both deuterium H-labeled substrates, and oxygen and OH2 have, however, been extensively used in metabolic studies, since essentially pure labeled compounds are readily available and mass spectrometer facilities have become an essential part of structural determination. 

The third example is compact cleanup units for waste treatment, mainly in consideration of the numerous radioactive sites, stemming from cold-war military developments [106]. The Hanford, Washington, USA, site with a multitude of seriously contaminated tank wastes is among them. Due to the unknown character of most polluting species, the installation of a central waste-treatment facility is said to be not the best and most inexpensive solution. Rather, small modular units, able to be individually adapted to various separation tasks, which are inserted into the tanks and perform cleanup on site, are seen as the proper solution. 

Similar demands for reference materials also arise in connection with the monitoring of radioactivity in and around nuclear installations (nuclear power plants, nuclear fuel and reprocessing plants, and nuclear waste facilities). These, in fact, are now the main applications of radionuclide reference materials. 

The presence of radiation in the workplace - which is an inevitable consequence of the radioactivity of uranium - requires that additional safety precautions be taken over and above those observed in other similar workplaces. There are generally three sources from which radiation exposure may occur (i) radiation emitted from uranium ore in-situ and/or during handling (ii) airborne radiation resulting from the decay of radon gas released from the ore and uranium dust and (iii) contamination by ore dust or concentrate. Radiation levels around uranium mining and milling facilities are quite low - for the most part only a few times the natural background levels - and they decrease rapidly as the distance from... 

Americium is released into surface water primarily from plutonium production reactors, nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, or in nuclear accidents. It may also be released from radioactive waste storage facilities. Since 241Pu decays into 241 Am,241 Am is also released as a result of 241Pu releases. Water sampling data were used to estimate effluent releases from the SRS from the plant s start up in... 

Low level waste from commercial facilities is buried on site. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has projected the activities and volumes of low level radioactive waste from all sources buried at commercial sites to the year 2000 using information from the Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory (INEEL) waste retrieval project and assuming that the waste disposal practices then used would continue into the future. The 20-year decayed 241Am and 243Am concentrations were estimated to be 380 and 230 pCi/m3 (14 and 8.5 Bq/m3), respectively (Kennedy et al. 1985). 

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