ML19312C952
| ML19312C952 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/11/1979 |
| From: | Brodsky A NRC OFFICE OF STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT |
| To: | Deyoung R NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19312C953 | List: |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001170324 | |
| Download: ML19312C952 (3) | |
Text
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h NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMt.UsSION l
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June 11, 1979 MEMORANDUM FOR:
R. C. DeYoung, Deputy Interim Director NRC/TMI Special Investiga* ion Group FROM:
Allen Brodsky, Sc.0., C.H.P.
Senior llealth Physicist Occupational licalth Standards Branch, SD
SUBJECT:
REPORT ON PARTICIPATION IN TliREE MILE ISLAND (TMI)
ACTIVITIES Attached is a report summarizing my activities, observations, and some of my opinions with respect to the Three Mile Island accident.
Although major revisions in design, operational, training, and emergency planning requirements (including ours) are in order, the accident proved the effectiveness of the centainment building concept. My own estimates of health effects of the accident are consistent with those of the May 10 NRC-HEW-EPA staff report referenced in my report to the President's Comission.
L'hnw fYesc/
Allen Brodsky Senior Health Physicist Occupational Health Standards Branch Office of Standards Development
Enclosure:
As stated cc:
RBMinogue RGSmith EWeiss t JCC'ornell 80011'r0 3 Li
REPORT ON THREE MILE ISLAND ACTIVITIES - ALLEN BCDSKY I.
AS AN NRC EMPLOYEE A.
Advice Concerning Evacuation, Thursday _, March 29, 1979 At approximately 4 p.m. Thursday, March 29, 1979 I was told by Walt Cool that I was to join others in a meeting in Karl Goller's office.
I went immediately and Mr. Goller discussed the question of advising the Governor of Pennsylvania regarding evacuation of the population in the vicinity of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor. A number of opinions were expressed by others. After considering the status of the reactor and the radiation measurements found at that time in the environment, which indicated to me that only xenon-133 had been released in any quantity, I recommended that evacuation should not be advised for any of the population, unless thes e were real indications that significant quantities of at least iodines would be released.
I felt that after the initial period any further releases would be at least controllable or slow enough that limited evacuations could be accomplished later after better preparations. Also, I felt that the risk of an immediate evacuation, under the conditions of hysteria and confusion propagated by contradictory public pronouncements, would be greater at that time than the risk of radiation exposure to the public.
Mr. Goller thanked all of us and the meeting ended about 45 minutes after it had been convened.
B.
Assistance with Messages at the IE Incident Center, EW Towers On Tuesday, April 3, I was requested to report to the IE Incident Center that evening for duty, assisting with the receipt and translation of messages on environmental reports from Three Mile Island.
I generally assisted by manning the telephone at the desk receiving the environmental reports and passing messages to other desks. After going to the IE Incident Center Tuesday afternoon from about 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in order to be briefed on my duties, I worked only Tuesday evening from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. the following morning and Friday evening from 11 p.m.
to 7 a.m. the following morning due to an intervening illness. On Tuesday evening I also prepared myself for any questions and evaluations regarding environmental releases and checked my own fission product inventory calculations from y chapter in the Handbook of Radioactive Nuclides with those of the ORIGEN computer.
I found them to be in reasonable agreement. Also, I had a request to furnish any information on the radionuclide concentrations in one of the waste water tanks.
I stated that the only values I had seen were for iodines but that we would request further information. One individual became disturbed about i
advising the states about release of this waste water without having l
further analyses to advise them on the cesium 137 and other nuclide l
contents.
I advised that we could easily deduce from the analyses of the
(
primary coolant and other data that any cesium 137 content of the waste I
tank would be a small fraction of maximum pennissible concentrations than for the iodine concentrations, with respect to the iodine MPC's.
l l
Further, I advised the State Program representative that I believed the concentration in the waste tank was low enough (as I recollect, it was on the order of 4 x 10-5 pc/ml iodine-131) that if the waste water were dumped into the river, the radioactivity would become many orders of magnitude less than maximum permissible concentrations for drinking water in unrestricted areas.
I don't know how my advice affected any recommendations to outside agencies.
Aside from some indirect work in regard to Three Mile Island, such as involve-ment with Commission correspondence and helping the Inspector Auditor's office with translation of taped interviews, I had no other direct official involvement with the accident.
II. Voluntary Assistance On Saturday, March 31, at approximately 4 p.m., I drove from Pittsburgh, PA, to liershey, PA, arriving at the home of Mr. Kenneth Miller, Director of licalth Physics, liershey Medical Center, to advise and assist him in prepara-tions for possible evacuees or contaminated workers from Three Mile Island.
I remained at flershey until the evening of Monday, April 2, as a volunteer and provided some guidance regarding emergency preparations and briefed the medical staff of the hospitas on Monday morning to help orient the staff in regard to handling contaminated patients and to alleviate fears regarding their ability to deal with the situations that were likely to arise. A report requested by Mr. Miller to the President's Conmission is attached describing my assistance to the Hershey Medical Center.
The only other activities relevant to the Three Mile Island accident were some talks in which I presented n1y opinions regarding the accident and one appearance on Channel 6 TV in Miami, Florida, on a one-hour talk show confronting Dr. George Wald, May 13, 1979. All of these activities were done as an individual professional, and remarks: stated as such were identi-fied to the audiences.