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Plutonium in the Environment

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Uranium · Plutonium Transplutonic Elements

Abstract

During the years of World War II and the development by the Manhattan District of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the possibility of loss of radionuclides to the environment was constantly in mind. Each major installation developed an environmental surveillance capability and made regular measurements of air and water, and sometimes soil or other media both on and to a lesser extent, off-site. In the volume summarizing the Industrial Medicine of the Plutonium Project, Cantril and Parker (1951) had the following to say about the Columbia River:

There may be some concern that radioactive water released from the plant to the Columbia River will so contaminate the river that its water will be dangerous to man, fish, or fowl. It is true that the water which passes through the units to act as a coolant does become radioactive. But it is also true that the greatest part of this radioactivity is lost before the waste water is ever put back into the river. A continuous record is maintained of all water which flows from the plants to the river, and at no time has the combined waste water been in excess of that which would cause an overtolerance radiation exposure to any living thing immersed in it. The voluminous further dilution that occurs in the river brings the quantity down to one which cannot be measured below the plants. But in spite of this, the river water is periodically analyzed, with a negative result. As for the addition of heat to the river by the dumping of large quantities of coolant waters into it—there is heat added, but the dilution factor of the river itself is so vast that it requires the most delicate thermometers to register this small increase in temperature. This too is dissipated before the river flows through the limits of the reservation.

Work supported in part by Contract No. AT (11-1) 3490 between the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the University of Rochester and has been assigned Report No. UR-3490-117.

Secs. III A and B of this chapter were prepared in collaboration with Professor Robert H. Wilson, University of Rochester and he reviewed most of Sec. III and part of Sec. II. His collaboration and counsel are gratefully acknowledge.

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Authors
  1. J. N. Stannard
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacology, University of California, 94122, San Francisco, California, USA

    Harold C. Hodge

  2. Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, 14642, Rochester, New York, USA

    John B. Hursh  & J. Newell Stannard  & 

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Stannard, J.N. (1973). Plutonium in the Environment. In: Hodge, H.C., Hursh, J.B., Stannard, J.N. (eds) Uranium · Plutonium Transplutonic Elements. Handbuch der experimentellen Pharmakologie / Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, vol 36. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-65551-7_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-65551-7_15

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