ML19308B643

Responds to Re Radiation Levels.Average Dose of Radioactivity Received within 50 Miles of TMI Was Approx Four Millirems.Max Exposure Was Less than 100 Millirems

ML19308B643
Person / Time
Site:	Crane
Issue date:	12/31/1979
From:	Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
To:	Longacre A AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
Shared Package
ML19308B644	List: ML19308B643 ML19308B645
References
NUDOCS 8001160508
Download: ML19308B643 (3)

Text

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l CEC 311979 t

b Mr. Abraham Longacre O

RDi2, 3ox 5 0Qhg Dauphin, PA 17018

Dear Abrahan,

I am writing in response to your letter of April 9, 1979 regarding Three Mile Island. I regret that this answer to your letter has been delayed. The accident and its consequences have created a substantial increase in the agency's workload, which has prevented me from responding to you as promptly as I would havn liked to.

The very small dose of radiation that was received by people in the area I

came from radioactive gases that escaped from the auxiliary building. The average dose of radioactivity received by the population within 50 miles of l

Three Mile Island was approximately 4 millirems. The =av4== exposure to any individual was less than 100 millirens, which is less than the yearly dose each person receives as a result of naturs1 background radiation.

Doses at these levels result in less than one health effect over the life-time of all people in this area. Natural background radiation received by people in the 11arrisburg, Pennsylvania, area is approximately 125 millirems per year. To put these doses into perspective, it should be noted that a traveler flying round trip in a jet between New York City and Los Angeles receives 5 millirems from cosmic rays in the natural background.

A team of investigators from the Nuclear Regulatory Connaissirm, the Environ-mental Protection Agency, and the Department of Health, Educatica and Welfare calculated the doses to the people living within 50 miles of the Three Mile Island site and estimated the number of new cancers that would result from the exposure to the radioactivity that laalrad out of the plant. The team published their work in a report entitled, " Population Does and Health Impact of the Accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station" (NUREG-0558).-

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6 DEC 311979 They concluded that the offsite collective dose associated with radioactive material released from March 28, 1979, to April 7, 1979, represents =ia4=1 risks (that is, a very small ntsaber of additional health effects to the offsite population). Enciased for your information is a sunsaary of NUREG-0558.

Sincerely,

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Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Enc 1: Summaary of NUREG-0558 i

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I DEC 311979 Distribution Docket (Attach original of incoming correspondence)

• NRC/PDR (Xerox copy of incoming and place behind outgoing PDR copy)

• Local PDR NRR r/f SPE/TMI r/f TMI Site r/f RVollmer SMiner JohnCollins W0liu PChee DEisenhut RTedesco RReid DDilanni i

CNelson HSilver RIngram/LA

• TERA

• Place these three copies in one envelope and forward to DSB-016.

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