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| Index | Introduction | Guide | Accidents | Definitions | Radionuclides | Protection Guidelines | Plumes | Baseline Data | Dietary Intake | Chernobyl | Source Points | Maine Yankee | Links | Bibliography | Alerts | Sponsor |

RADNET is one of the more complicated Websites on the net. What information about anthropogenic radioactivity are you seeking? The following questions and answers are our attempt to direct you to the section of RADNET that would be most helpful in providing the information you are seeking.

The primary purpose of RADNET, as noted in the introduction, is to document nuclide-specific contamination of the abiotic and biotic environment from nuclear weapons and nuclear power source points. This means that there is a huge amount of nuclear information which you cannot locate within this Website. The role of RADNET Section 13: RADLINKS is to connect RADNET visitors to the principal nuclear and general environmental information sources throughout the world, including both governmental and private, national and international WWW links.

What's new? -- Our most recent publication -- a paper on Generic and Site-specific Deficiencies in Radiological Surveillance Programs.

A report to the Department of Justice, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Office of Legal Counsel: Patterns of Noncompliance: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and The Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company: Generic and Site-specific Deficiencies in Radiological Surveillance Programs.

Health Physics Questions:

What is the impact of radiation, nuclear accidents, source points of anthropogenic radioactivity, exposure to specific radioactive isotopes on human health? This is the type of question most frequently directed to RADNET. RADNET includes no specific information about the impact of radiation on human health; none of the sections of RADNET contain the answers to such questions. RADNET therefore contains no dose-effect information which might evolve from data pertaining to contamination of the biosphere with anthropogenic radioactivity. However, since questions pertaining to the health effects of ionizing radiation are frequently received, the following sections of RADNET may be helpful in answering these questions or providing links to the numerous WWW information sources on these subjects.

• For a brief introduction to the biological significance of anthropogenic radioactivity see RAD 5: Biologically Significant Radionuclides.
• For a comprehensive summary of the public health impact of ionizing radiation from all sources, please refer to the ATSDR Toxilogical Profile for Ionizing Radiation reviewed in RADNET Section 6: Radiation Protection Guidelines. Of related interest is the recently issued 1997 Revised FDA Radioactive Contamination Guidelines, also in RAD 6.
• RAD 14: General Bibliography lists a number of basic ancient hard copy texts which contain extensive information about the health physics impact of anthropogenic radioactivity. Among the most important of these are the series of BEIR committee reports, the comprehensive UNSCEAR report (1982), and the foremost publication on this topic, John Gofman's Radiation and Human Health. Many health physics questions are answered by these and other publications. We hope to add to our small selection of citations in RAD 14. Your suggestions are welcome.
• RADNET Section 13: RADLINKS: Part 2-C: Health Physics Links will connect RADNET readers with most of the major information sources pertaining to the health effects of ionizing radiation. Among the best of these WWW links is the Univ. of Michigan Radiation and Health Physics page with links to health physics sites throughout the world.
• RADLINKS 2-A: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, is also a good jumping off point for exploring health physics issues and is also a link to other publications by John Gofman.

Documenting the presence of specific radioisotopes which originate from nuclear accidents and incidents is the principal objective of RADNET. Prior to any evaluation of the health impact of a nuclear accident or incident, it is essential that as much data as possible about the source term and pathways of plumes of anthropogenic radioactivity be available, especially to non-experts who may doubt, as do the editors of RADNET, the truthfulness of dose estimations made without any knowledge, or with limited knowledge, of the amount of radioactivity to which specific population groups are exposed.

• RAD 3: Major Nuclear Accidents-in-progress lists accidents which have happened in the past, and which are, for the most part, no longer of interest as current news stories. Unfortunately, these old news stories continue to be nuclear accidents-in-progress. They range from weapons testing fallout still being circulated in biogeochemical cycles to ominous plumes of anthropogenic radioactivity from a variety of weapons production facilities and commercial nuclear power installations throughout the world. We are now just becoming familiar with the hidden legacy of these source points. Specific topic headings in RAD 3 will direct you to information throughout RADNET.
• Also see RAD 3 for a preliminary list of locations and types of nuclear accidents which may occur in the future.
• RAD 11: Major Plume Source Points contains most of the information available in this site about ongoing nuclear accidents.
• For additional information on existing source points of radioactive contamination, also surf RADLINKS: Section 2-A and 2-B.
• An excellent general summary of source points of anthropogenic radioactivity is the UNSCEAR publication noted above, Ionizing Radiation: Sources and Biological Effects: see RAD 14.
• One of the most important nuclear information resources contained within RADNET is the Riso National Laboratory cumulative fallout record, RAD 8: Part 3. The cumulative fallout index provides a concise but critically important yardstick to use in the evaluation of ¹³⁷Cs ground deposition resulting from many (but not all) types of nuclear accidents.

A variety of safety, decommissioning, regulatory, legislative, and political issues and questions surround the now increasingly controversial operation of commercial nuclear power plants both in the United States and overseas. As the principal potential source point of significant quantities of anthropogenic radioactivity in the bioregion in which RADNET is located (the Gulf of Maine), the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station in Wiscasset, Maine, has long been a subject of interest to RADNET. A number of RADNET sponsor (Center for Biological Monitoring) publications are listed in RAD 16: RADNET Sponsor Information.

• Go to RAD 12: Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company (MYAPC) to explore the wide variety of issues pertaining to waste inventories, decommissioning, steam generator and general plant safety and the negligent NRC oversight of these problems.
• RAD 12 also documents a whole series of legal and regulatory issues which have evolved from the publication and circulation of a whistleblower's letter in December 1995. The investigation which subsequently evolved from these allegations raises new safety concerns pertaining to the capacity of the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) and other safety systems at MYAPC which are relevant to anyone concerned with ongoing macro and microdegradation processes within aging nuclear power plants. See current topics of interest in RAD 12.
• Of particular interest are a variety of NRC generated reports pertaining to specific safety issues at MYAPC which are located in RAD 12 in the public safety issues bibliography (see NRC: publications listed in order of their date).
• For nuclear power plants as a source point of anthropogenic nuclear radioactivity also check RAD 11: Part 3.
• Numerous Websites listed in RAD 13: RADLINKS have extensive additional information about nuclear power related issues: environmental, regulatory, legal, political. See especially NIRS (Nuclear Information Resource Service) for up to date legislative and political information and regulatory developments and IEER (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research), the best source of technical and waste stream information on the Web. Also see Abalone Alliance, NWCC, Proposition One, and Public Citizens, all of which are organizations whose sites can be accessed in RAD 13: 2-A.
• For regulatory information and NRC generic and special reports, surf the numerous NRC links listed in RAD 13: 2-D.
• Among the most likely sources of significant amounts of radioactive contamination in the future are the antiquated RMBK nuclear reactors located in Eastern Europe and Russia. RADNET has almost no information on these important potential plume source points. Many of the safety issues documented at MYAPC and other NRC licensed reactors would have some relevance in the evaluation of these deteriorating nuclear power plants. Some information on RMBK reactors is available via RADLINKS Part 2-B.

Most of the major plumes of anthropogenic radioactivity which will be of concern to the citizens of the next millennium originate from nuclear weapons production sites established in the 20th century. Very little information about the effluents from these facilities is available due to the shroud of secrecy which surrounds most weapons production facilities. RADNET has no information whatsoever about weapons production facilities outside of the United States other than preliminary data now being made available by Aarkrog (Riso National Laboratory), the IEER, and others about huge Russian weapons-production-derived plumes. Major US weapons production facilities are shrouded in both secrecy and paradox: the detailed DOE environmental remediation site reports, as well as many other US government sponsored publications, contain a wealth of information about these plume source points while, at the same time, assiduously avoid any accounting of the curic inventories of the uncontained releases of radioactivity associated with these facilities.

• See RAD 3: Nuclear Accidents-in-Progress for a summary of the most active known US source points. This brief summary will direct you to information in RAD 11, Part 4.
• For links to WWW information sources about nuclear weapons production sites visit RAD 13: RADLINKS Part 2-A and 2-B. Of particular interest are the publications of the IEER, especially Nuclear Wastelands; also link to the NRDC (Nuclear Weapons Databook - 4 vols.).
• Very extensive US government compiled information about military production facilities within the United States is available in the labyrinth of DOE Websites in RAD 13: RADLINKS Part 2-D. Each major DOE facility or research laboratory produces its own annual environmental monitoring report, several of which have already been reviewed by RADNET (more will be cited and annotated during 1997) and all of which are available upon request from the DOE.
• For information on numerous Russian source points, see RAD 11: Part 1 (General Bibliography), Part 5 (Military Plume Source Points) and Part 9 (Submarine Accidents). Only limited information is available about these huge plumes.
• For information about Russian source points on the WWW, visit RAD 13: RADLINKS Part 2-B. Especially see the Bellona site as well as other international environmental Websites. RADNET has yet to observe any substantial amount of biological monitoring data in any of the numerous international government Websites in RADLINKS Part 2-E.

RADNET provides the largest compilation of annotated citations pertaining to Chernobyl-derived radioactive contamination available anywhere on the World Wide Web. The entire section of RAD 10 is devoted to reports documenting the hemispheric spread of the plume from the Chernobyl accident. In RAD 10, the general bibliography is followed by a few (very important) citations about Chernobyl-derived hot particles. The remaining part of RAD 10 is a very incomplete summary of nuclide-specific data presented in a country-by-country listing. Most of this information was compiled between 1986 and 1990.

• Visit RAD 13: RADLINKS Part 2-B for the small amount of information available on the WWW about Chernobyl-derived contamination.
• Also see RADLINKS Part 2-F, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences for the only unclassified aerial radiometric survey of Chernobyl-derived radiocesium (Sweden only) available on the net. The only other unclassified radiometric survey, reprinted in a MAFF publication (see RADLINKS 2-E) is not available on the Web. For the annotated citation of this latter survey see RAD 10: Part 3: United Kingdom, Sanderson 1989.
• The cumulative fallout record (Riso National Laboratory) located in RAD 8: Part 3 provides an essential point of comparison for evaluating the hemispheric-wide spread of Chernobyl-derived ¹³⁷Cs.

Among the largest nuclear accidents-in-progress, most Sellafield (Cumbria) information is in RAD 11: Part 7. Very little biological monitoring information is available about Dounreay (Northern Scotland) as a source point.

• See RAD 3: Nuclear Accidents-in-Progress for more comments on Sellafield and Dounreay as source points of anthropogenic radioactivity.
• The Riso National Laboratory in Denmark has documented low-levels of Sellafield-derived contamination in the Danish diet for several decades. See RAD 9: Dietary Intake for Riso-derived dietary intake data. See RAD 13: RADLINKS 2-E for a link to the Riso Laboratory site.
• Visit RAD 13: RADLINKS 2-B for links to international environmental organizations concerned with Sellafield and Dounreay effluents.
• As usual, the international government nuclear information sources in RADLINKS 2-E appear to have very little information about Sellafield and Dounreay-derived radioactive contamination.

The upcoming Cassini mission to Saturn has the potential to become one of the most significant nuclear accidents of the future. For information on satellite accidents in general (²³⁸Pu radioisotope thermal generators) and the Cassini mission in particular, visit RAD 11: Part 10. Also see RAD 3, Nuclear Accidents-in-Progress:

• We have yet to locate a Website with additional technical information about the satellite accidents listed in RAD 11: Part 10. We welcome anyone who can tell us of other sites on this topic and/or advise RADNET where Karl Grossman, expert on nuclear power in space, is holding forth on the World Wide Web.

One of the problems editors of RADNET have encountered is the lack of a reliable, accessible, radiation protection guide providing practical, comprehensive information to be used in the event of a nuclear accident. Particularly lacking is a guideline which gives simultaneous consideration of not only all exposure pathways, but also all the biologically significant radionuclides released during a nuclear accident or explosion, including transuranic (plutonium, neptuniun, americium, and curium) and other long-lived isotopes. It is particularly important that such a guide begin with relatively low-levels of radioactive contamination which will have little or no significant health physics impact, prior to the delineation of emergency protection actions which would be taken when the threat to public health was imminent.

• Visit RAD 6: Radiation Protection Guidelines for a review of the existing literature. RADNET solicits any hard copy of either citations which have yet to be annotated (because we lack the hard copy) or of citations we have omitted due to the editors unfamiliarity with this area of nuclear information.
• A basic radiation protection datum expressing a fundamental level of concern is the 10,000 pCi/kg (for ¹³⁷Cs, radiocesium {^134,137Cs} or for any other contaminant except radioiodine) used by the FDA for evaluating contamination in imported foods after the Chernobyl accident. For comments on this basic level of concern and its relationship to other FDA radiation protection guidelines, visit RAD 6: Parts 2-7.
• Of particular concern for anyone interested in radiation protection guidelines is the controversial, in fact anomalous, revised FDA guidelines issued prior to the Chernobyl accident which form the basis of radiation protection considerations in the Maine Radiological Emergency Response Plan (MRERP). Also, visit RAD 6: Parts 2-7; then see additional comments on the MRERP and the revised guidelines upon which this plan is based in RAD 12: Part 3.
• Compare the extremely liberal (i.e. high-levels of exposure) revised FDA PAG's used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) noted above with the protective action guidelines for authorized persons suffering surface contamination discussed in RAD 6: Part 3-D.
• For NRC regulatory guidelines link to NRC sites in RAD 13: RADLINKS Part 2-D, or to the Fedworld site. For DOE and EPA regulatory guidelines visit the labyrinth of DOE sites or the EPA site.

A cumulative baseline of radioactive contamination resulting from human activities now exists in most abiotic as well as biotic components of the earth's biosphere. This baseline of contamination includes not only the indicator nuclide ¹³⁷Cs used throughout RADNET but also ²³⁸Pu, ²³⁹Pu, ²⁴¹Am, ⁹⁰Sr, ¹²⁹I, ³H, and numerous other isotopes listed in RAD 8 and RAD 10.

• For basic information about the impact of weapons testing fallout, especially before and/or as a comparison with the Chernobyl accident, visit RAD 8: Anthropogenic Radioactivity: Baseline Data.
• As noted, this baseline is also illustrated by the cumulative fallout record compiled by the Riso National Laboratory and reprinted in RAD 8: Part 3. No such easily accessible comprehensive fallout record is available for any sites in the United States, neither those close in to the Nevada weapons test site nor far field US locations.
• Also visit RAD 11: Major Plume Source Points: Part 2 for additional (pre-Chernobyl) baseline data.
• The Chernobyl accident has completely altered the baseline of radioactive contamination in many sections of the world: visit RAD 10: Chernobyl Fallout Data for information about the many locations where Chernobyl-derived fallout overwhelmed the weapons testing baseline of contamination.

The dietary intake of anthropogenic radionuclides from a particular source point will often be delayed by a much longer time period than the few hours it takes for the short-lived (1/2 T = 8 days) indicator radionuclide ¹³¹I to make its way up the food chain following a nuclear accident. Perusal of data pertaining to contamination of the food supply following both weapons testing fallout and Chernobyl-derived fallout illustrates the longer-lived indicator nuclide ¹³⁷Cs (1/2 T = 30 years) takes approximately one year to reach its maximum level in some food basket surveys.

• For additional information about the dietary intake of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁹⁰Sr during the era of nuclear weapons testing, visit RAD 9: Anthropogenic Radioactivity: Dietary Intake. Extensive documentation of the lingering presence of weapons-testing-derived fallout combined with the intrusion of Sellafield-derived contamination in the Danish diet is contained in RAD 9, Part 2.
• To review the (secret) FDA survey of Chernobyl-derived contamination in the imported food supply, see RAD 9: Part 4, Chernobyl peak pulse in USA imported foods. For a further illustration of the FDA cover-up of this pulse, see Cunningham (1994) in RAD 9: Part 1-B.

Some basic general information sources are included in RAD 14: General Bibliography: Ancient Hard Copy. One of the basic texts is Isenbud (1987).  The more difficult to locate publications of the IAEA are also essential sources of general information about anthropogenic radiation. Additional citations will be added to this section of RADNET over time.

• If you are visiting RADNET, and you are suffering from psychic numbing, headaches, or general absent-mindedness, you can't remember which order of magnitude E represents, or if you have forgotten the conversion factor for becquerels to picocuries, visit RAD 4: Definitions and Conversion Factors.
• For a quick introduction to the intended purposes of RADNET, visit RAD 1: General Introduction.
• For sponsor information and sponsor publications, visit RAD 16: Sponsor Information.