ML20126B183

Provides Subcommittee on Energy Research & Production W/ Comments on 791111 News Article Re Univ of Heidelberg Rept Asserting That NRC Underestimates Reactor Radiation Doses to Public.Rept Incorrect.Rept Original & Translation Encl

ML20126B183
Person / Time
Issue date:	02/20/1980
From:	Ahearne J NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
To:	Mccormack M HOUSE OF REP., SCIENCE, SPACE & TECHNOLOGY (FORMERLY
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ML20126B185	List: ML20126B183
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Download: ML20126B183 (3)

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OFFICE OF THE ' '":

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CHAIRMAN 7 _ ,

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[ The b Mbli Mike McCbrmack

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Dear Congressman McCormack:

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.?.. _2~.s%This .'isW'res"iionseTtiWi[leite5f la' s'sessment70'f the ' article? "A New German Nov' ember'13,1979, Study Challenges requesting NRC's the NRC's Assurances;" l

' ~ ' f'T written' by free;. lance writer Dick Bruckenfeld, which appeared in the Washington

-7F Post on November 1171979. The article concludes that NRC seriously under-

.1 estimates radiation doses to the public from nuclear power reactors. According to Mr. Bruckenfeld; our dose estimates are based on fraudulent experiments 3 and we do not require adequate radiation monitoring. His assertions are incorrect.

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TThe ahticle refers to a report 'of'a. study by a group at the University of "J Heidelberg. In July 1978, an NRC staff member obtained a copy of this report, which is written in German; from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. The

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report is entitled; "Radioecological Assessment of the WYHL Nuclear Power Plant',"

dated May 1978; and is authored by the Department of Environmental Protection of m the University of Heidelberg. Preliminary discussions with Swiss scientists j

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indicated that the report showed high values for calculated doses to people, l but did not include environmental measurements to support the corresponding predictions of high concentrations of radionuclides in environmental media.

Because NRC has environmental measurement data to support lower dose estimates, we saw no imediate need for translation and detailed review of the document.

Subsquently, a petition to the NRC included a request for comment on the report.

In November 1978, the report was submitted for translation into English so that the technical . content of the report could be fully reviewed and evaluated. The translation was completed by February 1979, and is identified as NRC Translation 520 (TIDC 520). For brevity, this report is referred to as the "WYHL report" in

.cthe. following discussion. .

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fyEThe NRC'stiaff distributed"the translation to interested parties and honored all-. . . ~~

~ ' req'uests for.' copies of the translation until one of the authors of the report

' informed the NRC staff that the report was copyrighted. We then requested and eventually received permission to make available a corrected translation of the report. A copy of the corrected translation has been placed in the NRC Public Document Room where it is available to anyone interested. A copy of the trans-lation is enclosed.

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$j .The~WHYL' report estimates doses from the WYHL nuclear power plant that are 10 .

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. ..to.10,000 times higher than NRC?s dose estimates for . reactors operating in the -

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the WYHL report's assessment is based largely on '

p E'~.e-infironmentarmbdels"desc. ibed r in NRC's regulatory guides, the WYHL report uses ._ [

L =-.rvalues'for:some modelrp'a'rameters that are much higher than the values NRC uses.

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kWA-Weihav~e..fdentifiedithe~ms36r' differ'ence' between:the WYHL report's dose estimatesi.gsp b EGIshf]MC[sIdiis'e'festEiitER~ as thef WYHL"snise of soil-to-plant transfer factors ~ cN I

!ithcdfo'r:itwohcritical:radi6n'uclides~(i;e.,'Cs-137 and Sr-90) that' are up to 1000 f

Mi~E ltimessgreater.than .NRC'ifvalue.mWe are still trying to document-the'. source of JD R

'theWYHLtreport'sidumberso Bruckenfeld states that, "The Heidelberg group . nMW . F sh;'

5%: Feach'edtits conildsiorFifter digging'through 25 years of scientific journals to r :-

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E-T=" find % hat experimentsth'ad been done on how much fallout was getting ~to people, i L y~ Theyfthen' compared the'results offthese' other experiments with the NRC figures-- T-.

W eightfother experimentilin the case ~ of cesium, eleven others in the case of u- [F I' strontium." NRC's soil-to-plant transfer factors are derived from a study by  :

4-- -Y.C.{Ng for the University of California Radiation Laboratory under contract to -

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the_ AEC. .That study is' entitled,;" Predictions of the Maximum Dosage to Man F W from the Fallout of Nuclear Devices, Handbook for Estimating the Maximum Internal- l

[ T Dose' from Radio'nuclides Released to the Biosphere." Ng's references for the

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soil-to-plant transfer of Cs-137 and Sr-90 are experiments done by scientists in other countries (Australia, England, Japan, and Russia) rather than U.S. A

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Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) scientists. Therefore, the NRC dose estimates il for the two nuclides most critical to the whole WYHL report analysis are not b based on the experiments mentioned by Bruckenfeld. Furthermore, while the NRC t acknowledges that some of the AEC experiments that were done for other radionuclides _ [

in the 1950's'could be done better today in light of advancements in technology, i;j

~ 1 ~ we have never characterized these studies as fraudulent, and we know of no s.t evidence to support Bruckenfeld's claim to that effect. [

y The WYHL report estimates doses that are so large that concentrations of several -

radionuclides (e.g., Cs-137 and I-131) should easily be detected in environmental  :.

samples. However, the environmental monitoring reports for American nuclear I power reactors indicate that the concentrations of the above radionuclides in

. environmental samples;.(e.g., food, crops, meat, and milk) are much less than

^ A.- :.the values;that the:WYHLireport predicts. uThe WYHL report offers no environmentalc=s-(N[9monit6 ring data to'sup)5E.tiits prediction ~s? Therefore, it appears that the .~ -: .' T E'

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The' article by Bruckenfeld states that, "to verify the Heidelberg report would ~~~

require monitoring food from various farms and dairies near recictors, a step which NRC calls unnecessary and expensive." Such monitoting is currently ,

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i Th3 Honorable Mike McCormack page 3 at i

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$j x x. -w required by the NRC as shown' in the enclosed Branch Technical Position of

. . th:3 Radiological Assessment Branch of our Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

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= l'As stated above2 the monitoring results contradict the WYHL report estimates

.' E for Cs 137 and I;131. Furthermore, the results indicate that environmental @$

. %cncentrations of most radionuclides are below their lower limits of detection et Musing" state 2 f;theiartMnstrdmentation',

0 which supports NRC dose models which --@

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--- --=4- :m C d w.Th Bruckenfeld article states that', "NRC is stopping the monitoring of $

1 strontium 90 at nuclear plants " This is_ correct for offsite sampling; 9

. g however_, monitorjng:of . strontium-90 at..the points :of release from the _ plants Mf6ntinu'esitCbeMqdfredMDiriorlience!with-mariy31 ant -years.of ' operating -data n . c. @

S. - ~;WEj e.-4dn~dicatedithat~ radiostrontiumirelated-to-nuclear 3 plants was being- detected at =-

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' ;5=i n's i gni fi cant.al evel s50 r nots ati a.1.in i n . of fu s i te e nv i ro nment al 1s ampl es . Strontium-- .-d m90 from world-wids fallout was.being ~ detected at-very low concentrations in Ed environmental samplesi however', these low concentrations of fallout strontium-90 sj masked the presence of the even lower concentrations of any plant-related &

strontium-90; thus the environmental radiostrontium monitoring program in most @

icases in unproductive and unnecessary. However', monitoring at the point of 7

'. release of strontium 90 continues for radioactive effluents from nuclear power &

pl ants. In these effluents, the changing levels and higher concentrations of radiostrontium from the power plant can be easily detected. Should unusual @d E

. circumstances warrant environmental monitoring for radiostrontium, it will be ph e required on a. case-by-case basis by the NRC staff.

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W The article also states that the WYHL report is', "the first time independent Q; scientists have dug into NRC's safety assurances to expose their foundations," r thus implying that the validity of the NRC radionuclide transport and dose 5 models have not been reviewed and assessed by scientists outside the NRC. Ei This is incorrect. The Environmental Protection Agency, Argonne National &

Laboratory', Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Battelle Northwest Laboratory, EET privately-owned technical consulting companies, and numerous national and f international scientific organizations all have radionuclide transport and p" dose models based 'on field measurements that yield results consistent with 2.

the NRC calculations. In September 1977', a Workshop on "The Evaluation of 4:

..u..u_Models..used .for the _ Environmental _ Assessment _.of_Radionuclide Releases"_was. - -

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'Mhheld ein Gatlinburg',-:Tennesse~e25 Participants =in-this workshop merersel ected,"=Ub ?Q NSFiris~ure#aiFapriropriate c'omtiiiiatiioniof individtials representing a she~cWum-~ "'

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= Sof scientific and administrative expertise.=.The working group on terrestrial food chain. transport at this meeting', whose members were predominantly from

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' organizations other than NRC; concluded that transport models, as given in @

NRC Regulatory ~ Guide 1.109, are very adequate for demonstrating compliance E with NRC's regulations (as given in Appendix I of 10 CFR Part 50). F

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'7f Bruckenfeld's article makes ntsnerous references to the LAND / LEAF study,

.7 entitl ed',".* Nucl ear Waste : The Time Bomb in Our Bones." Our staff has g

'2~ reviewed .this study and found it to be openly biased and poorly documented.

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- .: $The stud /makes numerous assertions regarding an increased cancer risk in

'..i-the Wisconsin area due to radionuclides released from nuclear power plants fg V - Kein that IFea. It is impossible to check the calculations in the report l' rc . 2Xbecausedhe authors .have failed .to:_ (1)-give adequate references to provide sufficient tables (e.g.', source. ....

T.. q?:documenti.their numberspor-.( al

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% 13ermestinat sTme'teoFolW"ic_2)5datana'nd Fenvironmental e

• Mdf radi'~s6'lides)Mhatare o c neededMo'checY their calculations.. Our staff

? $has obtained some~ addition ~al data pertaining to the LAND / LEAF study and

$will evalbate this irifonnation as time permits:. However', because the . _

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J_.dl.AND/LEAEEstudy estiriiates? appear;to-be based 'ondbe WYHL report's methodology, . 4... __e. j a .-

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-,_ ,, gl g- ing completion of a' deta~iled

,- .:.Our . Office o~ffNudlear,.g"" Reactor Regulat~ ion 1s near 1

~ ' review and critique of the WYHL report. The results of this review and evaluation s

. ,'of the WYHL report will be published early this year as a NRC (NUREG) report.. [

.We will . send you a copy of this review as soon as it is available. F

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'Other comments on the Bruckenfeld article have been published in the Washington t Post and are enclosed.

Thank you again for the opportunity to comment on this article. Please contact i us if you have any further questions or require additional infonnation.

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b hn . Ahearne airman g

Enclosures:

1. "Radioecological Assessment of I s- the WYHL Nuclear Power Plant" . l

1. D;.JJECSTransiation:520;(TIDC._520)hsg"5m... .. _ _ c_.,._.. n_._ ._g: i 3 ~:- . m J

. ~~~??2F ."AFAcceptable R5d{olbgrcal7 Environ ---i iT' #__=W~~4

~

---F

" ~"MZ . mental Monitoring Trogram'," NRC -

"+'

Office of Nuclear: Reactor Regulation',-

Radiological Assessment Branch

3. Letters to the Editor of the Washington j Post, November 26', 1979 s  ;

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