Wills 1 Christopher Wills HSCI 352 05/14/13 Dr. Mian Citation: Gonzalez, Abel J. 2013.

International Policies and Strategies for the Remediation of Land Contaminated by Radioactive Material Residues. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 119: 5-12. National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Web. 08 May 2013 Synopsis The scholarly article written by Abel Gonzalez is a plea to the international community to reach an agreement addressing the ambiguous policies regarding land contamination with radioactive materials. He argues that the confusion and disorganization surrounding international policy stems from the misunderstanding of some of the basic terms used by the public and majority of radiation protection experts. In order to transcend the readers opinion with credible opinions, Gonzalez dives into the weeds of both political and social jargon with the hopes of tackling the depth of a very controversial issue. Through explaining the misunderstandings of common terminology, origins of radioactive residues, and current recommendations/standards the article appeals for a simple clear answer regarding safety on land with radioactive contamination. The most common question radiation protection experts get asked by the public is, Is it safe to live here. Unfortunately many of these experts provide unclear non-conclusive answers that fail to provide any assistance to the individuals who inquired. The land is safe if the contaminated land has been optimally remediated; however the two words italicized are widely misunderstood and therefore must be addressed. The article explains that the stereotype surrounding contamination is that it is automatically bad despite the amount of it. Gonzalez suspects that this flawed perspective derives from the religious origin of the word which defined it as impure. However the denotation and connotation should not be mixed as contamination is simply the presence of radioactive materials measured in a given quantity. Today the word is not used to quantify the presence and of radioactive material where it is undesirable but instead misinterpreted as a measure of radiation related dangerousness. The mistaken meaning of contamination was most likely a result of the misunderstood meaning of remediation. Environmental radiation protection agents use remediation to mean the removal or reduction of radioactive substances from environmental media. However the public and numerous experts have associated this term to mean cleanup; but remediations sole purpose is to reduce quantifiable levels of radiation to where theyre no longer harmful to humans rather than completely eliminating the contamination. Gonzalez is implying that the added emotion behind

Wills 2 the two words creates a level of confusion amongst the radioactive community which ends up providing insufficient and inconsistant information to the public. So where do the radioactive residues found in the environment originate from? The article provides 5 main scenerios of radioactive contamination in order to trim the obscurity found amongst numerous experts. The first and least commonly blamed scenario of radionuclides is the normal discharge of radioactive material from planned and properly authorized human activity. The modern information known about radiation and its harmful affects have posed strict regulations for its use in weapontry and power creation which significantly reduce radioactive leakage. The second scenerio involves the termination of a practice that included radioactive materials in its process. Nuclear powerplants that have been decommisioned in the past have shown to release a small amount (.01 millirem/year) of radioactive reminants after a long period of time. The third and most commonly occurred scenerio is that of radioactive residue being released as a result of human activity not properly regulated in the past. An example of this source would include the ancient mining and milling of ore containing radioactive substances; some of the isotopes derived from various metals emit mostly alpha, but also a few beta, particles into the environment which is considered radioactive residue. The fourth scenerio describes a past event that was unforseeable at the time of occurance and caused severe longterm radiation in a particular area. Such was the case on April 26, 1986 when a nuclear powerplant located in Chernobyl, USSR exploded and released catostrophic amounts of radioactive particles across the western USSR and some of Europe. Finally the last scenario of radioactive residues described is that of past human military operations that unlike scenario 4 were forseeable and avoidable. The most famous example being the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, this scenario also includes nuclear weapons testing such as that done on Three Mile Island; CNN.com reports that there has been over 2,200 nuclear tests performed by numerous countries over the last 70 years. Current recommendations for radiation protection come from The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The term current, however, is sort of misleading due to the fact that Publication 60, written in 1990, is still used as the current model approach. In 2007 new recommendetions were written in ICRP Publication 103 that adressed the holes Publication 60 did not cover. Despite a valient effort, Publication 103 is still slowely scratching its way into the current standards (1990) recommended by the ICRP. The fundemental difference between the two Publications is how each approaches remediation of contaminated land. P60 utilizes a process-based approach in which the emphasis is placed on the individual and their actions in the presence of radiation. P103, on the other hand, utilizes a situation-based approach in which the emphasis is on the location where radiation exposure may occur. The advantage of the latter is that the root of the problem is actually tackled, being the location, rather than a subsidiary of its affects, being the people. The article also refers to the ICRP reference levels and there affects on radiation protection. Current ICRP standards link

Wills 3 reference levels with the remediation process to optimize conditions. For example if an individual in a contaminated area shows radiation higher than that of the reference level, then an optimal remediation process will be carried out. Gonzalez argues that exposures below the reference level should also be analyzed further to see if conditions are optimal or if they need improvement to prevent future complications. The final issue affecting international remediation policies is the neccesary global agreement on situations that are not warranted to be remediated. Gonzalez states that these exclusions are outside the bounds of radiation protection because despite immense efforts they can neither be controlled nor amended. He argues that it makes no sense to waste the time and limited resources on a situation that cannot be fixed. The reason why such wasteful spending is initiated is due to the reality of social and political attributes generally unrelated to radiological protection. Through all of these recommendations Gonzalez hopes the radiation protection community could comprise a simple and clear answer on what is safe and what is unsafe.