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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 |

Except the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident of April 26, 1986: See RAD 10

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. General Bibliography
3. Nuclear Weapons Test Explosions

A. Marshall Islands
B. Johnston Atoll
4. Nuclear Power Plants

A. United States Nuclear Power Plants
1. Maine Yankee
2. Connecticut Yankee
3. Three Mile Island
4. Other Citations about U.S. Nuclear Power Plants
5. Safety Issues at U.S. Nuclear Power Plants
a. Reactor Embrittlement
b. Spent Fuel Cladding Failure
c. Steam Generator Degradation Mechanisms
d. LORCAs and Spent Fuel Cooling
e. Hot Particles
f. Spent Fuel Storage and Disposal (Dry Casks/Multi Purpose Casks, etc.)
g. MOX
6.  Nuclear Regulatory Commission Publications (if not listed in any of the above categories)
B. Canadian Nuclear Power Plants
C. Russian Nuclear Power Plants
D. Japanese Nuclear Power Plants
E. European Nuclear Power Plants
G. Biological Monitoring (see extensive citations in RAD7: Plume Pulse Pathways)
5. United States Military Source Points

A. U.S. Military: General Bibliography
1. The Plutonium enigma
2. The Plutonium enigma: Part 2
3. Deepwell Injection
B. U.S. Military: Specific Source Points
1. Argonne National Laboratory
2. Fernald, Ohio
3. Hanford Reservation, Washington State
4. Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
5. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
6. Los Alamos National Laboratory
7. Maxey Flats, Kentucky
8. Moab, Utah
9. Mound Laboratory, Miamisburg, Ohio
10. Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant (MFRP), Morris, Illinois
11. Nevada Test Site
12. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee
13. Pantex, Amarillo, Texas
14. Rocky Flats, Colorado
15. Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico
16. Savannah River Plant, S. Carolina
17. West Valley, New York
6. Russian Military Source Points
1. Kyshtym 1957
2. Karachay Lake Wind Transfer
3. Techa River
4. Chelyabinsk
5. Kola Peninsula
6. Krasnoyarsk
7. Novaya Zemlya Test Site
8. Semipalatinsk Test Site
9. Tomsk
10. Sosnovyy Bor
11. Vladivostok
7. United Kingdom Source Points
1. Dounreay
2. Sellafield (Windscale) Fuel Reprocessing Facility
8. Marine Radioactive Waste Dump Sites
1. Russian Ocean Dumping Sites
9. Nuclear Submarine Accidents and Dump Sites
10. Nuclear Powered Satellite Accidents
11. Uranium Mining, Milling, and Processing
12. Depleted Uranium
13. Sealed Sources, Devices and Radioactive Scrap
1. SNAP Power Generators
2. Scrap Metal
3. Medical
4. Food and Irradiation
5. Industrial Measuring
6. Other
14. Other Important Foreign and Miscellaneous Source Points
1. French and Israeli Military Source Points
2. Canadian Source Points
3. Cap de la Hague
4. Goiania, Brazil
5. Palomares, Spain
6. Rosyth, United Kingdom
7. Thule, Greenland
15. Sabotage and Terrorism
16. Missing Weapons Production High-Level Waste
17. Sewage Sludge

• The cumulative deposition in a wide mid-latitude band of the northern hemisphere of weapons testing derived ^239,240Pu is now ~50 Bq/m² (3,000 d.p.m./m²); testing derived ¹³⁷Cs exceeding 1,000 Bq/m² remains in many locations. Other long-lived radionuclides accompany these isotopes, some "growing in" as daughter products from inert gases; others such as ²⁴¹Am "grow in" as daughter products of more dangerous isotopes such as ²⁴¹Pu. The following activities, facilities, and locations are either (or both) past or future potential source points of the release of radioactivity into the environment, in some cases with the potential for the dispersion of anthropogenic radioactivity approaching or equaling the magnitude of the Chernobyl accident release.
• The following citations are not intended to be a comprehensive list, only a representative selection of research on the most important past, present or potential contamination source points.
• RADNET will shortly include a file pertaining to the mining, milling and processing of uranium in the nuclear weapons production cycle; RADNET includes little or no information about many other potential industrial sources of radioactive contamination such as medical technology, food irradiation equipment, etc.
• Some topics are almost entirely omitted due to space limitations or lack of data; e.g. research on European nuclear power and fuel reprocessing facilities (the citations on Sellafield represent less than 1% of the available literature on this topic), or information pertaining to French, Israeli or Chinese weapons or nuclear power production.
• The following annotated bibliography is a draft that will be continually updated. RADNET readers are requested to provide any additional citations or information about any of the plume source points discussed in this section.

Aarkrog, A., Botter-Jensen, L., Chen Qing Jang, Dahlgaard, H., Hansen, H., Holm E., Lauridsen, B., Nielsen, S.P. and Sogaard-Hansen, J. (1991). Environmental radioactivity in Denmark in 1988 and 1989. Riso-R-570. Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark.

Aarkrog, A. (1992). Source terms and inventories of anthropogenic radionuclides. Report No. DK-4000. Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark.

• In addition to ¹³⁷Cs, ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³¹I, Aarkrog lists the following fission products as worthy of monitoring:

Sr-89, Y-91, Zr-95, Nb-95, Tc-99, Ru-103, Ru-106, Sb-125, I-131, I-129, Cs-136, Ba-140, Ce-141, Ce-144, Eu-154, Eu-155.
• This report is cited frequently in the following parts of this section of RADNET.

• See discussion in RAD8: Anthropogenic Radioactivity: Baseline Data: Part 3. Weapons Test Fallout Baseline.

• "...the southern Urals have significant sources of radioactive contamination other than those officially reported. This fact may have an impact on the global inventories of ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs." (pg. 69).
• "It is concluded that two sets of soil samples collected in the Sverdlovsk region by a joint USSR-IUR expedition in May 1990 suggest the presence of radioactive debris from (at least) four sources of contamination: global fallout, the Kyshtym accident in 1957, the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and unreported releases from nuclear activities in the southern Urals, probably the release from Lake Karachay in 1967." (pg. 79).
• See Part 6 of this Section on Russian military source points for more information on this topic.

• This report is a more detailed analysis of Soviet military source points of radioactive contamination of the environment, but documents only a tiny percentage of cold war era high-level wastes resulting from Soviet military activities.
• This report is also cited frequently in the following parts of this section of RADNET.

• Table 1: Inventory Estimates for Uncontained Radionuclides in the Polar Regions (PBq) 1993 Estimates (p. 28).
• A bioregional survey of uncontained releases of radioactivity, the principal sources of Arctic contamination being Sellafield (15 PBq ¹³⁷Cs), global fallout (4.1 PBq), USSR river discharges (5 PBq), and Chernobyl (5 PBq); all equal Aarkrog's highest estimates. Estimates of ⁹⁰Sr are approximately a third of the ¹³⁷Cs estimates.
• This is one of the many comprehensive reports from the Riso National Laboratory in Denmark which will be cited throughout this section of RADNET.
• Total fallout in this bioregion estimated at 33 PBq of ¹³⁷Cs (892,000 curies). The polar regions are well away from the mid-latitude regions which have received the highest level of weapons and Chernobyl derived contamination.
• Table 2: Lists preliminary estimates for other sources of radioactive contamination of the Arctic (p. 29):
• Komsomolet submarine, Barents Sea 1989 (Petrov, 1991): 2.9 PBq ⁹⁰Sr, 3.1 PBq ¹³⁷Cs
• Sr-90 powered Lighthouses, Siberian coast (Aarkrog et al., 1994): 10-15 PBq ⁹⁰Sr per unit
• Dumped submarines at Novaya Zemlya (Yablokov et al., 1993): ~85 PBq ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs

Albright, D., Berkhout, F. and Walker, W. (1993). World inventory of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, 1992. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Borson, D. et. al. (1990). Payment due: a reactor-by-reactor assessment of the nuclear industry's $25+ billion decommissioning bill. Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. Washington, DC. pp. 88.

Broden, K., Carugati, S., Brodersen, K., Carlsson, T., Viitanen, P., Walderhaug, T., Sneve, M., Hornkjol, S., and Backe, S. (November 18, 1997). Characterisation of long-lived low and intermediate-level radioactive wastes in the nordic countries. NKS/AFA (97)8. Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark.

Burke, P., Ed. (1988). The nuclear weapons world: Who, how & where. Oxford Research Group, London.

Cochran, T.B., Arkin, W.M., Norris, R.S. and Hoenig, M.M. (1987). Nuclear Weapons Databook. Vol. 3, U.S. nuclear warhead facilities profiles. Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Davis, M.D. (1988). The military-civilian nuclear link: A guide to the French nuclear industry. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.

de la Court, T., Pick, D. and Nordquist, D. (1982). The nuclear fix: a guide to nuclear activities in The Third World. WISE Publications, Amsterdam.

DiNunno, Joseph J. (June 1997). Integrated safety management. DNFSB/TECH-16. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Washington, D.C.

Eisenbud, M. and Gesell, T. (1997). Environmental radioactivity: from natural, industrial, and military sources. Fourth edition. Academic Press, San Diego, CA.

• This is the fourth edition of one of the most comprehensive information sources on environmental radioactivity.
• This text is environmental radioactivity through rose colored glasses: compare Eisenbud's comments on the relative harmlessness of plutonium in Chapter 16 with Goffman's in Radiation and Human Health.
• The misinformation about the Chernobyl source term in the 3rd edition has been corrected (see chapter 12). No mention is made of the recent National Cancer Institute report on ¹³¹I exposure during the 1950's and 1960's which effectively deconstructs the traditional and beloved pie chart (pg. 528) of exposure to sources of ionizing radiation (see RADNET 13: RADLINKS Part II-C: Health Physics Links).
• Chapter 3 is an excellent survey of the chaotic world of radiation protection guidelines. See also Chapter 16.
• This fourth edition was published in 1997, but it is already out-of-date. There is no reference to derived concentration guideline levels (DCGLs), to the MARSSIM or to the FDA derived intervention level (DIL) guidelines for contaminated foods.
• Though containing some discussion of pathway exposure, this edition contains only the briefest discussion of the recent changes from a concentration-based to dose-based site release criteria as defined in MARSSIM.
• If careful pathway analyses of long-lived spent fuel wastes (LLSFW) is essential to establish credible TEDEs, one would not know it from reading this important text.

International Atomic Energy Agency. (1971). Disposal of radioactive wastes into rivers, lakes and estuaries. (Safety Series No. 36). IAEA, Vienna.

• One of the many publications of the IAEA, RADNET does not have a copy of this text available for review and annotation. RADNET readers are alerted to the many excellent but difficult to locate publications of the IAEA, some of which are cited in RAD: 14, General Bibliography. Most IAEA publications can be accessed by surfing the IAEA websites in RAD: 13, RADLINKS. Even though the IAEA led the way in the ritual of aversion pertaining to Chernobyl derived fallout patterns, an as a subsidiary of the United Nations has many of the qualities associated with ostriches, the importance of the research in IAEA publications such as Transuranian Nuclides in the Environment (1976) should not be underestimated.

• Revised monitoring and analysis protocols are needed to assess how natural and man-made radionuclides affect the ecosystem health. The inventory is a first step in establishing the sources, pathways, distribution and movement of radionuclides.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). (1992). Plutonium: deadly gold of the nuclear age. International Physicians Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Kouts, Herbert J. C. and DiNunno, Joseph J. (October 6, 1995). Safety management and conduct of operations at the Department of Energy's defense nuclear facilities. DNFSB/TECH-6. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Washington, D.C.

Leskov, S. (June 1993). Nuclear dumping: lies and incompetence. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. pg. 13.

Makhijani, A. and Makhijani, A. (January, 1995). Fissile materials in a glass, darkly: technical and policy aspects of the disposition of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Takoma Park, Maryland.

Makhijani, A. (1996). Heading off the plutonium peril. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER).

• This IEER editorial first appeared in the Washington Post on December 5, 1996, and is an excellent thumbnail sketch of the recent decision of the DOE to dispose of some of its excess weapons grade plutonium by incorporating it into reactor fuel by mixing it with uranium oxide creating a mixed oxide or MOX fuel. This editorial may be downloaded electronically from the IEER site, see RAD 13: RADLINKS, Part II-A.

• This report includes information on light water reactor safety issues as well as plutonium in spent fuel in reactors using MOX fuel.
• "MOX spent fuel would still contain from 40 percent to over 70 percent of the plutonium concentration in the fresh MOX fuel." (pg. 3).

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Scottish Environment Protection Agency. (1997). Radioactivity in food and the environment, 1996. RIFE-2. MAFF and SEPA, London.

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Scottish Environment Protection Agency. (September 1998). Radioactivity in food and the environment, 1997. RIFE-3. Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, MAFF and SEPA, London.

• Annotations of this report can be found in RAD 6: Radiation Protection Guidelines: 3. Radiological Monitoring Programs and Remediation Guides: B. Programs Outside the USA.

• A comprehensive early study of contamination of the marine environment.
• This report is frequently cited in this section of RADNET.

Saleska, S. et. al. (1989). Nuclear legacy: an overview of the places, politics, and problems of radioactive waste in the United States. Public Citizen, Washington, D.C.

U. S. Congress, OTA (Office of Technology Assessment). (September, 1993). Dismantling the bomb and managing nuclear materials. OTA-O-572. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

U. S. Department of Energy. (September, 1988). Environmental survey: preliminary summary report of the defense production facilities. DOE/EH-0072. U. S. DOE, Washington, D.C.

U. S. Department of Energy. (1991). Final report on DOE nuclear facilities. Advisory Committee on Nuclear Facility Safety to the U.S. DOE, Washington, D.C.
 

3. NUCLEAR WEAPONS TEST EXPLOSIONS

• See Section 8 of RADNET for more data on weapons tests fallout.
• See Section 9 for an introduction to the impact of weapons testing on the dietary intake of radiocesium, etc. prior to Chernobyl.
• See Part 6 of this section of RADNET on Russian military source points for comments on Russian test explosions.
• This section of RADNET will be gradually updated and expanded.

Asker Aarkrog of the Riso National Laboratory in Denmark, in his 1988 comparison of Chernobyl debris with nuclear weapons fallout (Aarkrog, 1988, JER, p. 151-162) notes that 740 PBq of ¹³⁷Cs was released to the northern hemisphere from 423 atmospheric nuclear test explosions. In another Riso National Laboratory publication, (Aarkrog, 1993, "Sources to Environmental Contamination in the former USSR", p. 37; annotated in part 8 of this section) Aarkrog estimates that the 87 nuclear explosions detonated at Novaya Zemlya alone released 370 PBq ⁹⁰Sr and 560 PBq ¹³⁷Cs. Did the other 336 test explosions only release an additional 180 PBq of ¹³⁷Cs?

Aarkrog also makes the following observations: "The integrated deposition density in the 50 to 60 N latitude band is 2.9 kBq ⁹⁰Sr m-2. (UNSCEAR,1982) In 1990, the cumulative deposit had decayed to 1.5 kBq ⁹⁰Sr m-2. The corresponding level of ¹³⁷Cs fallout is a factor of 1.6 times higher, i.e. 2.4 kBq m-2 at present... the cumulative deposit of ^239,240Pu is 52 Bq m-2." (Aarkrog, et al. 1992, p. 70)

• 1 PBq = 27,000 Ci

• This report includes extensive "...comments both on aspects of the disposition campaign that are independent of the disposition method chosen, and on the various disposition options under consideration." (pg. 1).
• "...the scale of the current disposition campaign means this campaign will fail to meet its stated goals of helping to ensure that arms reductions are difficult to reverse and demonstrating a US commitment to irreversible reductions." (pg. 1).
• "...it is essential to apply permanent international IAEA safeguards as early as possible in the disposition process. ...the near-term security of stored plutonium and other fissile material in the US and former Soviet Union is an 'overriding priority' (p.143 [see citation of the DOE draft below]); indeed, an effective disposition campaign is impossible without close attention to the near-term security of fissile material." (pg. 1).

• Pre-Chernobyl baseline data.

• This report documents the presence of radiocesium in New England hardwood ash with peak values to 21,100 pCi/kg in contrast to concentrations in wood ash from Pacific coastal environments, which are less than 500 pCi/kg.
• The source of these elevated concentrations in New England wood ash is probably nuclear weapons testing fallout; there is insufficient data to determine if Chernobyl derived radiocesium plays a role in any of these elevated concentrations.
• The excessive levels of radiocesium in New England wood ash are significant enough to warrant a warning that no wood ash be recycled as garden compost, whereby the radiocesium would become available for uptake by root crops.
• RADNET is soliciting any reader contributions with additional citations on this subject.

• A landmark article in the literature on chemical fallout, the mussel watch has been in essence discontinued due to budgetary considerations.
• "Elevated...^239,240Pu concentrations in bivalves from the central California coast are apparently related to enrichments of nuclear weapons testing fallout ^239,240Pu in intermediate depth water of the North Pacific and upwelling of this water associated with the California Current system." (pg. 490).

Hardy, E.P. Jr. (May 1, 1981). Environmental Measurements Laboratory: Environmental report. Department of Energy, New York, N.Y.

• 1997 DOE WWW printout gives the following description of the goals of the Environmental Measurements Laboratory (EML), which includes 115 sampling sites operated and maintained as part of ENL's global sampling network: "The objective of the research performed in this program area is to provide fundamental data on natural and anthropogenic radionuclides deposited on the earth's surface, which can be used to characterize, quantify, and model environmental pathways, and to evaluate the environmental and human health impacts on regional and global scales. As part of this program a rapid response capability is maintained to support Department of Energy (DOE) activities in radiation emergencies that arise within the U.S., and for assessing releases that are international is scope." Information on EML can be accessed at www.eml.doe.gov/errprog.htm or visit RAD 13: 2-D.
• This 670 page report is one of a long series of quarterly reports produced by the Environmental Measurements Laboratory, which began issuing reports in 1958 as the Health and Safety Laboratory and continues to issue reports today. The very first report was HASL-42 Environmental Contamination from Weapons Tests; all EML reports may be accessed and purchased from the National Technical Information Service; the EML WWW site contains a complete list (126 pages) of all the publications and reports ever issued by this laboratory, and not much else. URL: http://www.eml.doe.gov/PUBS/PUBCROSS.HTM
• The forte of EML is its extensive documentation of weapons testing derived ⁹⁰Sr; thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of reports have been devoted to this specific radionuclide. Another EML forte is stratospheric inventories of ⁹⁰Sr, ⁹⁵Zr, ²³⁸Pu, and ²³⁹Pu as well as ¹³⁷Ce and ¹⁴⁴Ce. An update of stratospheric nuclide inventories to July 1979 is contained in this report in Vol. I, page 341. For example, the Nov. 17, 1976 Chinese atmospheric nuclear test resulted in the following stratospheric inventories of ⁹⁰Sr: Oct. 1978: 45 kCi; Apr. 1979: 34 kCi; July 1979: 19 kCi. The ¹³⁷Cs / ⁹⁰Sr inventory ratio is noted as 1.6 +/-.2 for the years 1970-79 (page I-343).
• This report provides a number of interesting tables pertaining to weapons tests (page I-19 to I-25):
• Table 1-A: Date and yields of nuclear detonations of the People's republic of China: max. yield 4,000 KT, 11/17/76.
• Table 1-B: Dates and yields of nuclear detonations by the Republic of France: max. yield 1,000 KT, 08/14/71.
• Table 2: Movement of radioactive debris from atmospheric tests: max. movement time 21 days: Eniwetok Atoll to Debracken, Hungary; debris travel time from Siberia to Washington, DC, 16 days; from Bikini Island to Rio de Janeiro, 21 days; Nevada Test Site to Ottawa, Canada, 1 to 2 days; Nevada Test Site to Frieburg, W. Germany, 7 days.
• Table 3: Travel time of radioactive debris from Chinese tests to various sites: max. transport time was 40 to 47 days to Chilton, UK; most transport times were 2 weeks or less.
• Table 4: Movement of radioactive debris from underground tests: transport times for leaky Nevada Test Site to European locations were 8 - 15 days.
• Table 5: Maximum gross beta activity observed after the first French test of Sahara on 13/2/60: Tamale, Ghana surface air contamination: 1,000 pCi/m³; Aix la Chappelle, W. Germany rain water contamination: 14,000 pCi/liter; Bombay, India ground deposition: 169 MC/KM².
• Note that EML is now (as of 2009) called the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory (NUSTL). There are links online to the older reports at http://www.wipp.energy.gov/namp/emllegacy/publications.htm.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). (September, 1992). Nuclear test tally 1992. Vital Signs. IPPNW, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 5(3) pg. 4.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). (1991). Radioactive heaven and earth: the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing in, on, and above the earth. The Apex Press, New York.

Livingston, H.D. and Bowen, V.T. (1979). Pu and ¹³⁷Cs in coastal sediments. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 43, 29-45.
 

1973

Buzzard Bay

0-2 cm Sediment core

239,240Pu

160 d.p.m./kg dry sediment

• Peak concentration of fallout ^239,240Pu in sediment to 2.5 mCi/km²

• One of the rare citations with media specific data on close-in local weapons testing fallout.
• Also see Section 8, Baseline Data, and Section 9, Dietary Intake, for more data on nuclear weapons testing contamination.

• A comprehensive general summary of nuclear weapons production facilities and an overview of the principal health physics and environmental issues associated with each site.
• This publication acknowledges the lack of documentation necessary for comprehensive evaluation of the health and environmental effects of these weapon production sites: "One legacy of the long history of nuclear weapons production in the United States is a large number of 'formerly used sites that had been contaminated and abandoned or restored to civilian use without appropriate cleanup. There is evidence of a similar picture in Russia.' " (p. 63). "Neither the AEC nor DOE monitored many sources of radioactive emissions, including sources that generated considerable amounts of radioactive waste." (pg. 185).
• Table 6.2, pages 189-200 provides a partial list of locations with nuclear weapons related activities (and therefore contamination), but does not include all the sites now undergoing DOE environmental remediation efforts as listed in DOE publications.
• This publication provides a comprehensive listing of the types of contamination originating at U. S. and well as foreign weapons production facilities (radioactive, chemical and heavy metals contamination) but provides very little data on the actual amounts of the contamination.
• Table 6.10 reprints high-level waste inventories at 3 U. S. facilities as provided by the U. S. DOE integrated database discussed in this section of RADNET. The authors of this publication make no comments or observations about the fact that the 970 million curies of military high-level waste cited in this table are an inadequate accounting of total U. S. military high-level waste production or that there may be other locations having contained or uncontained inventories of high-level waste other than Hanford, Savannah River or the Idaho National Laboratory. Table 6.10 omits the DOE listing for West Valley New York.
• This text is particularly useful in its focus on the lack of data for evaluating worker exposure to contamination.
• This publication contains an excellent summary of Russian and British weapons production contamination source points. Table 11.1, page 533-553 is an overview of nuclear weapons related activities throughout the world other than U. S. locations. Table 12.1, page 581, contains nuclear weapons materials inventories for countries with nuclear weapons capabilities.
• This is the most comprehensive guide to world wide nuclear weapons production presently available despite its paucity of data pertaining to actual inventories of contained as well as uncontained high-level waste.

• Amchitka Island was the site of three underground nuclear tests (1965, 1969, 1971), the latter of which (Cannikin, 5 megatons) was the largest underground nuclear test in US history. This test was also the seminal event which stimulated the organization of the environmental group Greenpeace which evolved from the 1971 protest of this test.
• Greenpeace returned to this island in the Bering Sea to check on possible venting of contamination from this site and documented contamination in moss and algae samples including Cs-137 (p.v.: 9.96 pCi/g(ash)), Pu-239/240 (p.v.: .15 pCi/g(ash)) and Am-241 (p.v.: .094 pCi/g(ash)).
• While there is not enough data or control samples to determine how much cesium and plutonium result from stratospheric fallout versus these three underground tests, the presence of americium 241(a constituent of weapons testing emissions as well as the daughter product of plutonium 241) indicates, according to Greenpeace, that leakage is occurring from this underground test which was made too close to the surface.
• A copy of this report may be obtained from Greenpeace: see RADNET section 13: RADLINKS Part 2-B. Also see the americium-241 alert in RADNET Section 15.

• "A marked change was observed in the number of radionuclides in seaweeds. The increase of radionuclides is attributed to contamination by radioactive fallout from Chinese nuclear explosion tests." (pg. 367).

• The full report including a color coded map detailing county-by-county exposure estimates is available on the Internet at URL: http://rex.nci.nih.gov/massmedia/Fallout/index.html.
• For an additional critique of the NCI report by IEER (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research) go to URL: http://www.ieer.org/ieer/latest/iodnart.html.
• Hard copy is available from the National Cancer Institute, Office of Cancer Communications, Building 31, Room 10A24, Bethesda, MD 20892. It is 100,000+ pages.
• "The National Cancer Institute (NCI) report contains an assessment of radioactive Iodine-131 (I-131) fallout exposure from the nuclear bomb tests that were carried out at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1982, Congress passed legislation calling for the Department of Health and Human Services to develop methods to estimate I-131 exposure to the American people, to assess thyroid doses from I-131 received by individuals across the country from the Nevada tests, and to assess risks for thyroid cancer from these exposures. The fallout report fulfills the first two of these three requirements." (Backgrounder Questions and Answers).
• "The report includes county-by-county estimates of average I-131 doses to the thyroid for persons living or born in the contiguous 48 states during the period when the bomb tests were carried out, mostly in the 1950s." (Backgrounder Questions and Answers).
• "The report shows that everyone living in the contiguous 48 states was exposed to I-131 at some level. The average cumulative thyroid dose to the approximately 160 million people in the country at the time was about 2 rads." (Backgrounder Questions and Answers).
• "Meteorological modeling and the re-analysis of historical monitoring data are the two methods used to estimate the amounts of ¹³¹I that were deposited on the ground following each test. For both approaches, the assumption is made that all of the ¹³¹I released to the atmosphere was in particulate form, as were the majority of radionuclides produced in the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests." (Technical Summary).
• "The radioactive cloud that was formed after an atmospheric detonation near the ground surface usually was in the shape of a mushroom, extending from the ground surface to the highest layers of the troposphere, and occasionally reaching into the stratosphere. It contained hundreds of different radionuclides, including ¹³¹I. ... The ¹³¹I activity per unit yield was found to be about 150 kCi kt-1 of fission for the tests considered in this report and the total activity of ¹³¹I released into the atmosphere was estimated to be about 150 MCi. (Technical Summary).
• "Deposition of ¹³¹I on the ground results from two processes: the impaction of aerosols on the ground surface (dry deposition) and precipitation (wet deposition). In the western part of the country, most of the deposition of ¹³¹I was due to dry processes ... [in contrast to the eastern part of the country] where most of the ¹³¹I deposition occurred as a result of precipitation." (Technical Summary).
• The NCI report is significant in that it reveals AEC - DOE monitoring data which clearly documented much greater dispersion of weapons testing fallout than the government admitted at the time of the tests.
• Also see our special appendix: Contaminated milk: A paradigm and WHO's 1986, post-Chernobyl national safety guidelines for ¹³¹I in milk

Noshkin, V.E. (1972). Ecological aspects of plutonium dissemination in aquatic environments. Health Physics, 22, 537-549.
 

1964	Bikini	Snapper (live)	239Pu	7000 pCi//kg wet
1970	Cape Cod	Striped bass (backbone)	239Pu	0.2 pCi/kg

• "...Plutonium is found widespread among planktonic, pelagic and benthic organisms" (pg. 537).
• "Bone and liver are major repositories for plutonium in marine vertebrates..." (pg. 537).
• "In marine sediments, as in soils, plutonium is more mobile than was originally expected." (pg. 537).
• "...It now appears that when the relative biological effectiveness of alpha vs. gamma or beta radiation is considered, fallout ²³⁹Pu contributes more than fallout ⁹⁰Sr or ¹³⁷Cs to the artificial radiation exposure of many marine species." (pg. 537).
• Excellent bibliography. A landmark article in ancient hard copy.

• ¹³⁷Cs to 20 Bq/kg (544 pCi/kg) in dry sediment.

• A detailed listing of all U.S. Nuclear weapons tests.

United States Department of Energy. (February 1998). Accelerating cleanup: Paths to closure. DOE/EM-0342. Office of Environmental Management, U.S. DOE, Washington, DC.

Venter, A. J. (March 31, 1999). New generation of nuclear weapons from radioactive waste. Jane's Defence Weekly. 31(13).

• "There is a strong feeling within the nuclear establishment that both America and France have actually conducted nuclear explosive experiments with neptunium 237, thus proving the suitability of this material for use in nuclear explosives" (David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security).
• "Said Albright, 'the world inventory of neptunium and americium is estimated to exceed 80 metric tonnes, or enough for more than 2,000 nuclear warheads.'  He told JDW that the amount is growing by about 10 tonnes a year."

An entire issue of Health Physics (vol. 72 no. 7, July 1997) has been devoted to the history of atomic weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, which include the Bikini Test Site, Enewetak Atoll, and other northern Marshall Islands atolls. Testing began in 1946 and lasted until 1958. Topics include the history of weapons testing, radiological monitoring, dose assessment, health effects and environmental studies at these test sites. Several of the contributed papers are cited below. Abstracts of all the papers in this and other Health Physics issues can be downloaded from http://www.wwilkins.com/.

Donaldson, Lauren R., Seymour, Allyn H. and Nevissi, Ahmad E. (July 1997). University of Washington's radioecological studies in the Marshall Islands, 1946-1977. Health Physics. 72(7).

Eisenbud, Merril. (July 1997). Monitoring distant fallout: The role of the Atomic Energy Commission Health and Safety Laboratory during the Pacific tests, with special attention to the events following BRAVO. Health Physics. 72(7).

Niedenthal, Jack. (July 1997). A history of the people of Bikini following nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands: With recollections and views of elders of Bikini Atoll. Health Physics. 72(7).

Noshkin, V.E., et. al. (July 1997). Past and present levels of some radionuclides in fish from Bikini and Enewetak Atolls. Health Physics. 72(7).

Noshkin, V.E. and Robison, W.L. (July 1997). Assessment of a radioactive waste disposal site at Enewetak Atoll. Health Physics. 72(7).

Robison, W.L., et. al. (July 1997). The northern Marshall Islands radiological survey: Data and dose assessments. Health Physics. 72(7).

Simon, Steven, L. (July 1997). A brief history of people and events related to atomic weapons testing in the Marshall Islands. Health Physics. 72(7).

Simon, Steven L. and Graham, J.C. (July 1997). Findings of the first comprehensive radiological monitoring program of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Health Physics. 72(7).

United States Energy Research and Development. (1975). Preliminary external-dose estimates for future Bikini Atoll inhabitants. Preliminary report No. UCRL-51879. USERD.
 

B. Johnston Atoll

Johnston Atoll consists of four islands 825 miles southwest of Hawaii.  Currently, it is managed by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Services as a National Wildlife Refuge.  It has been used by the military since the mid-1930's, and was the site of several air atomic tests during the early 1960's.  It is the site of JACADS (Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System) for the destruction of chemical weapons.  JACADS is run by the U.S. Army's Chemical Stockpile Disposal Project, and expects its stockpile of chemical weapons to all be destroyed by 2000.

Field, Michael. (March 18, 1999). Lonely Pacific atolls deadly weapons nearly gone but leakages remain. Agence France Presse.

• "The clean up has included scattered plutonium.  A nuclear missile failed to lift-off from the Johnston pad and exploded.  The plutonium core did not go critical but was scattered along a thousand metre (yard) length of shoreline."