Radioactivity Standards for Water

Abstract

This article is concerned with human health effects of chronic internal exposure for periods approaching a lifetime to very low levels of radioactivity in water that may or may not produce subtle damaging effects. The article examines the apparent differences among recommended standards in the following published documents: the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Report No.2; the National Committee on Radiation Protection (NCRP) Handbook 69; two Federal Radiation Council (FRC) guidance manuals; and, the 1962 USPHS Drinking Water Standards. A study of these documents indicates that for individual radioisotopes the recommended limits, although not identical, are not significantly different. All apparent differences between them are more a matter of terminology than of substance. An examination of the several limits proposed for Ra226 will demonstrate this. This radioisotope is selected as an example because it occurs in all of the documents, and because it is a pollutant associated with normal peacetime industrial operations rather than with nuclear weapons testing.