In the action of NATO A-10 airplanes in 1999, the cape Arza, Serbia and Montenegro was contaminated by depleted uranium. The clean-up operations were undertaken at the site, and 242 uranium projectiles and their 49 larger fragments were removed from the cape. That is about 85% of the total number of projectiles by which Arza was contaminated. Here are described details of the applied procedures and results of the soil radioactivity measurements after decontamination
Change of ra don con cen tra tions in dwell ings with floor level was stud ied in six multi-story build ings, in four towns of Montenegro with dif fer ent cli mate con di tions. The an nual av erage ra don ac tiv ity con cen tra tions in 35 dwell ings are found to be very low, mostly at a level of 20-30 Bqm-3. Ab sorbed gamma dose rates in these dwell ings are in the range of 14-58 nGyh-1. The low ra don con cen tra tions are a con se quence of a good tight ness of the struc tures in con tact with the ground and a small con tri bu tion of build ing ma te ri als to ra don in doors. A clear gen eral trend of changes in ra don con cen tra tions with floor level is not ob served. In most of the dwell ings on dif fer ent floors in the multi-story build ing ra don con cen tra tion varies very lit tle, mostly within mea sure ment er ror. A small de crease in ra don con cen tra tion is noted be tween the two or three floors clos est to the ground, but only in some of the build ings. There fore, a de crease of in door ra don con cen tra tion with floor level can not be con sid ered as a gen eral char ac ter is tic of multi-story build ings. Al though the sea sonal ra don vari a tions have not been in the fo cus of this study, it was found that the av er age ra don ac tiv ity con cen tra tions in dwell ings of the multi-story build ings are higher in warmer than in cooler half-year pe riod, what is con trary to the gen eral rule for homes in the world and in Montenegro as well.
Cape Arza was contaminated with depleted uranium (DU) in the air strikes of NATO aeroplanes on May 30, 1999. The cleanup and decontamination of the site started in 2001. Here the results of air monitoring performed during the cleanup operations in Spring 2002. are presented. The collected air samples were analyzed by high-resolution alpha spectrometry. The obtained concentrations of airborne uranium are about ten times higher than the average value usually reported for air. The ratio of the 234U/238U activities indicates the presence of depleted uranium in the air during the cleanup action, due to resuspension and soil disturbance in the contaminated teritory.
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