Offsite radiation doses summarized from Hanford environmental monitoring reports for the years 1957-1984. [Contains glossary]

Abstract

In 1957, Hanford became the first major U.S. nuclear facility to calculate and report potential radiation doses to people living nearby. Th~ assessment of offsite doses began in 1957 when all of the information necessary to make such an assessment first became available. This document summarizes these radiation doses as reported each year from 1957 through 1984.Plutonium facilities at Hanford began operating in late 1944, and together with the uranium program at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, began to produce materials to be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. With this historical change, a new phase developed in the philosophy of radiation protection. In 1946, the National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP) and later the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) were reestablished and shifted their emphasis from X-rays and radium to include radiation protection for radiation workers and for members of the public living in the vicinity of nuclear-energy facilities. The development of sophisticated radiation dt!tection equipment and the results frou1 research and experience gained from working with radiuactivt! materials made it possible in 1957 to estimate radiation doses to members of th~:: public living near Hanford.This document does not attempt to assess the potential doses to the offsite public resulting from Hanford operations before 1957. There are several reasons why an accurate assessment using the historical records would be extremely difficult to make.• Data collected before 1957 were not directed toward dose assessment, and the measurements of radioactive materials in the environrn~::nt were made with simple state-of-the-art instruments.• The historical record is incomplete because of the scheduled routine destruction of some documents.• Historical data related to effluent releases are inconsistent in many cases because different working groups at Hanford made estimates for different purposes.• Accurate information on the dietary habits and population distribution of early local residents is not known.iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the extensive editorial assiStdnce of K. R. Hanson and the word processing efforts of A. Jewell during the preparation of this report. We also dfe grateful for the many helpful suggestions made by numerous PNL and Hanford-contractor peer reviewers. reports. These evaluations included estimates of potential radiation exposure to members of the public, either in terms of percentages of the then permissible 1 imits or in terms uf radiation dose. The evaluations of potential radiation dose provided i11 these annual reports hctve been rt:!viewed and are discussed in this report. The estimated potential radiation doses to maximally exposed individuals from each year of Hanford operations, as given in the annual reports, are summarized in a series of tables and figures. The applicable standard for radiation dose to an individual for whom the maximum exposure was estimated is also shown on each table and figure. To the extent they were av...

Trends in radionuclide concentrations for selected wildlife and food products near the Hanford Site from 1971 through 1988

“…First, 1971 marked the end of an era at Hanford in which reactors used once-through cooling water systems. Nine nuclear production reactors and several radioactive material processing facilities ( Figure 1) have operated on the Hanford Site for various lengths of time since 1944 (Soldat, Price, and McCormack 1986).…”

HEDR modeling approach: Revision 1

“…5.1 Estimates, 1972Estimates, -1992 For the period following shut-downof the reactors, dose rates from the ColumbiaRiver pathway fell well below the TSP designatedlevels of interest (Soldat et al 1986). This has been verified using results from scoping studies and historicalmeasurements (Napier 1993).…”

Hanford Site National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) characterization. Revision 7

“…The monitoring results have been recorded from 1946 to 1958 in quarterly reports. Since 1958, the results have been available as annual reports (summarized by Soldat et al 1986). For calendar year 1993, the monitoring results for offsite and onsite environs and for onsite groundwater are combined in one report (Dirkes et al 1994).…”