INTERNATIONAL ACCELERATOR RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION E-MAIL (IARPE) NEWSLETTER "The Official Publication of the Accelerator Section of the Health Physics Society" (with Contributions from International Correspondents) ====================================================================== May/June 1996 Circulation: 206 Vol. 5, #3 ====================================================================== OFFICERS ====================================================================== President: Bob May, CEBAF President-Elect: Lutz Moritz, TRIUMF Past President: Nisy Ipe, SLAC Secretary: Steve Musolino, BNL Treasurer: Carter Ficklen, CEBAF Newsletter Editor: Vashek Vylet, SLAC Directors: Jeff Leavey (1998) Tracy Tipping (1998) Lorraine Day (1997) Don Cossairt (1997),FNAL De Vaughn Nelson (1996) Paula Trinoskey (1996),LLNL ====================================================================== CONTENTS From the Editor From the President Feature article Section News Call for Papers News from correspondents: CEBAF/TJNAF, LANL, KEK, DESY, FERMILAB, CERN, JRM Lab, SLAC How to subscribe or update subscription Closing thoughts ====================================================================== From the Editor Vashek Vylet ====================================================================== IARPE ON WEB: The first WWW issue of IARPE is finaly ready, you can check it out at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~vylet/iarpe.html. I would like to thank Ruth McDunn from SLAC's ES&H Division, who provided valuable advice and the so much needed initial push. There was no time to include fancy features, sophisticated typography, backgrounds and color schemes, so I am leaving these pleasurable tasks to my successor. Keeping a web issue in parallel with the listserv distribution means a substantial workload increase for the Editor. I anticipate that the importance (and workload) of the Associate Editor will increase accordingly. ERRATUM: Rick Donahue pointed out that the LANSCE beam intensities mentioned in the last contribution from LANL (increase "from 75 A to +100 A...") would mean a truly unique 80 GW beam. This mother of all beams was generated by inadvertently translating micro-amps into amps, when the Editor was trying to globally rid himself of a swarm of special characters from a non-ascii text. My apologies to Scott Walker, whose article I have mutilated. THANKS & GOODBYE! Since my term as IARPE Editor expires with this issue, I would like to thank all the correspondents and contributors without whom there would be no IARPE. Thanks also to all of you, readers/subscribers, for staying on board, keeping the circulation steadily above 200. Finaly, thanks to Lutz Moritz for his initial advice and James Liu, the current Associate Editor, for his help with tracking "bouncing" e-mail addresses. To insure continuity, plese send any feedback concerning this issue to me. I will forward your comments to the new Editor after the HPS Annual Meeting in Seattle. From the President Bob May ====================================================================== As I survey the current regulatory landscape, I am reminded of an old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. Sometimes it seems that the Health Physics profession has reached its nadir... We are mired in an international debate on the applicability of the linear no-threshold hypothesis with personal opinion elevated to the level of science. To pull a line from Marvin Rosenstein's HP Newsletter back page column; "and radiation protection appears controversial ... ensuring employment for years and years...". To confound this, it seems we are drawing increasingly close to regulation by agencies whose expertise derives from regulating the nuclear industry. Help for accelerator facilities on how to deal with "nuclear safety rules" is coming from interesting places. Recently, the Oak Ridge/Knoxville Chapter of the American Nuclear Society made several recommendations to the DOE including that accelerator facilities involved in the production of nuclear materials, be regulated as nuclear facilities. In case you miss the concern, this is different from regulating only the "target" where the nuclear material is located. This is somewhat disconcerting since many accelerator facilities just recently retired their DOE RadCon Manual implementation plans. Yet, there is hope. We push on; Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (formerly CEBAF) is tooling up to simultaneously deliver beams of unparalleled quality to different experimental end stations. Brookhaven National Laboratory continues to assemble RHIC. Our facilities are upgrading and planning to push the barriers of scientific knowledge. We, however, need to push back areas where bureaucracy is offered as a substitute for common sense and science in the application of safety at accelerators. We can do this by educating our colleagues in the Health Physics profession, and by partnering with and educating those who regulate our facilities. We have members involved in the ANSI N43.4 writing committee. We have a Section Committee, the CASOG, with a position paper nearing completion which contains recommendations on the design of accelerator safety systems using a risk based approach. We have a Newsletter with wide distribution and its first issue on the world wide web. We have a wonderful opportunity to get our view points about safety at accelerator facilities across to a large audience. We have several important issues to tackle at the meeting in Seattle and I hope to see many of you there. It appears that we need to consider changes to the by-laws which allow us to vote by proxy, or by mail to support those in the Section affected by reduced travel funding. We have to vote to fill several key positions in the Section at a time when the section can either lead the profession in developing reasonable and thoughtful approaches to health physics problems or fall prey to regulatory schemes which are potentially costly and inefficient. Please be heard. Get your nominations to James Liu or Wes Dunn on the Nominating Committee and make it to the meeting if you can. I want to thank the Section Executive Board for their assistance and wisdom and especially Vashek for his dedication to producing the finest newsletters yet offered by our Section . ====================================================================== FEATURE ARTICLE Bob May ====================================================================== CONSIDERATIONS ON REMOVABLE SURFACE CONTAMINATION CONTROL LIMITS FOR NON-CHARGED PARTICLE EMITTING RADIONUCLIDES. Bob May Radiation Control Group Head Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Current Federal regulations (10CFR835) do not adequately address limits for certain accelerator produced radionuclides. An example is the radioisotope beryllium-7 (Be-7), which decays by electron capture and does not emit a charged particle but emits a 478 KeV photon 9.7% of the time it decays. Consequently, conventional radiation detection equipment such as frisker, is relatively insensitive to Be-7. The frisker has a very low efficiency for photons of this energy, detecting less than 1%. The removable contamination limits in 10CFR835 are based in large part on the fact that nuclear fission products and related activation products typically decay by modes which produce beta particles as well as photons. These beta particles are charged and are readily detected by a thin window pancake (50 cm. diameter) Geiger-Mueller type detector, or frisker. Measurements are usually made on a substrate used to test for the quantity of radioactivity removed by dry transfer from a 100 square centimeters surface. The common response function is: 100 counts per minute (cpm) over background in a relatively low photon background corresponds to 1000 disintegrations/minute (dpm). This response function is suitable for radionuclides with relatively restrictive intake limits due to radiotoxicity, such as cobalt-60 (Co-60), and conveniently supports the limit for beta/gamma emitting radionuclides in 10CFR835 Appendix D of1000 dpm/100 square centimeters. We now consider the question of whether this limit is appropriate for radionuclides such as Be-7 by folding together the reduced detection efficiency and reduced radiotoxicity. One way of comparing the risk relative to 1000 dpm of Co-60 and Be-7 is to compare the Annual Limits on Intake (ALIs) for each radionuclide. The inhalation ALI is the quantity of radioactive material which, if inhaled during an occupational work year, produces a committed effective dose equivalent of 5,000 mrem. The inhalation ALI for Co-60 is 24 uCi and the inhalation ALI for Be-7 is 19,200 uCi. It is easy to see that the same quantity of radioactivity, if inhaled, results in committed effective dose equivalents which are a factor of 800 apart. The TJNAF RadCon Group (RCG) has studied the problem of Be-7 contamination on surfaces and in certain systems which process air and water at TJNAF. The RCG has established response functions for conventional "frisker type" detectors for measurement on substrate from systems unique to TJNAF. These response functions were determined by comparison of Be-7 activity, quantified using representative samples under controlled laboratory conditions, checked "in the field" using gamma spectroscopy measurements, and compared to field frisker measurements of the same materials. The response function is: 100 cpm over background (in a relatively low photon background) corresponds to approximately 30,000 dpm of Be-7 on substrate tested at TJNAF. If one applies this factor of 800 to the Co-60 based limit of 1000 dpm/100 square centimeters, the result would be a Be-7 contamination control limit of 800,000 dpm/100 square centimeters. Thus, using 100 counts per minute over background as a Be-7 limit would still result in contamination control levels about 27 times (800,000/30,000) more restrictive than the equivalent for Co-60. Nevertheless, the RadCon Group considers this conservatism to be acceptable and the value 30,000 dpm/100 square centimeters to represent a reasonable control value for TJNAF operations. Other non-beta emitting nuclides (similar to Be-7) such as cobalt-57, manganese-54 and chromium-51 (Cr-51) can be identified in radioactivity removable from surfaces at TJNAF. These nuclides are typically found in mixtures that produce response functions during field "frisking" which are generally as sensitive as that for Be-7. A review of the energy versus efficiency response function (normalized to Cs-137 photons) provided by one manufacturer (Ludlum Model 44-9 detector) for this type of detector indicates that the lowest response is between about 200 and 400 KeV. A a result, the combination of low photon yield and low response for Cr-51 and for Be-7 decay photon energies makes these nuclides generally most difficult to detect. A comparison of the decay modes and radiotoxicity (as compared to Co-60) of radionuclides of concern (often detected in various quantities and ratios as removable contamination) is offered below. There are other radionuclides which are not mentioned here because they are relatively easier to detect owing to their high photon energy and/or yield and often high energy charged particle emission. It is evident (and not unexpected), that as radiotoxicity increases, detection by frisker generally becomes more favorable on the basis of increased response due to charged particle emission and/or increased photon emission energy and yield. Three categories are described based on decay mode(s). Category 1 Electron Capture, Gamma Decay Only Radionuclide Photon Energy Photons/dis ALI as a percent [keV] of Co-60 ALI Cr-51 320.1 0.09 0.1 Mn-54 835 1.0 3.0 Co-57 122 0.87 3.4 Category 2 Beta +/- with yield >10% and gamma energy 20% Radionuclide Decay Characteristics ALI as a percent of Co-60 ALI Co-56 20% 1490 keV beta+ 12.0 40% 511 keV photon 100% 847 keV photon Co-58 15% 474 keV beta+ 3.4 30% 511 keV photon 99% 810 keV photon Category 3 Beta +/- with yield <10% and gamma energy > 500 KeV, yield >50% Radionuclide Decay Characteristics ALI as a percent of Co-60 ALI Zn-65 1.5% 327 keV beta+ 8.0 3.4% 511 keV photon 49.0% 1115 keV photon There is no condition where there is an increase in risk represented by the presence of 30,000 dpm of removable contamination over that represented by 1000 dpm of Co-60 removable contamination due to increase in radiotoxicity. Consequently, the quantity of radioactivity corresponding to 100 counts per minute over background using field "frisking" equipment represents a reasonable removable contamination control limit for the radionuclides of concern at TJNAF. International documents reviewed by the RCG state that it is "inappropriate to use the standard working limits for low yield 'photon only' emitting low radiotoxicity sources. These documents indicate that licensees should ask their respective regulators for relief from standard working limits for low radiotoxicity radionuclides(1). Other references indicate that standards should be based on acceptable working conditions and risk.(3) A 30,000 dpm/100 square centimeter limit is identified for beta/gamma emitting radionuclides (such as Co-60) in at least one international reference(2). The same reference also suggests contamination control values for low radiotoxicity radionuclides up to about 300,000 dpm/100 square centimeters based on "facility specific situations". Consequently, accelerator facilities should consider requesting that: DOE allow the use of a limit of 30,000 dpm/100 square centimeters for Be-7 removable surface contamination in lieu the implied limit in 10CFR835 Appendix D of 1000 dpm/100 square centimeters for beta/gamma emitting radionuclides, and moreover, that DOE allow the use of a field "frisking" technique which provides for a limit of "100 counts per minute over background" on removable surface contamination. This allows for the presence of both charged particle emitting radionuclides, non-charged particle, photon only emitting radionuclides, and those which decay by various mixed modes all contributing to the "frisker" response in a way which maintains as the risk due to radiation exposure no greater than and in most cases less than the risk associated with 1000 dpm per 100 square centimeters of Co-60 contamination. REFERENCES: 1. Advisory Committee on Radiological Protection for the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada. ACRP-7: Report on Derived Working limits for Surface Contamination, July, 1993 2. National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Recommended Limits on Radioactive Contamination on Surfaces in Laboratories, Radiological Health Series No. 38. June 1995 3. IAEA Safety Series No.1, "Precautions for handling unsealed sources..." ====================================================================== SECTION NEWS (compiled by the Editor from reader input) ====================================================================== Don Cossairt provided updated information on the course on radiation physics at accelerators that he and Kamran Vaziri will teach at UC Berkeley next January. Information on signing up for the US Particle Accelerator School and the course can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://fnalpubs.fnal.gov/uspas/welcome.html. The "abstract" for the course can be found on the World Wide Web specifically at the following address readily reachable from the first site: http://fnalpubs.fnal.gov/uspas/week1.html#rad. Note that applicants can now apply "on line". Update on the 1997 midyear meeting in San Jose: The Program Committee received 85 abstracts before the official deadline, and a few more were received within the next one week "grace period". This compares favorably with the last two midyears in Phoenix (~50 papers) and Charleston (~60 papers). According to Ralph Nelson, the previous and very successful midyear meeting on the same subject (Health Physics of Radiation Generating Machines) in Reno attracted 81 papers. The technical program will be finalized before the Annual Meeting in Seattle. ====================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS Hideo Hirayama ====================================================================== THIRD WORKSHOP ON SIMULATING ACCELERATOR RADIATION ENVIRONMENTS (S A R E 3) *********************** * CALL FOR PAPERS * *********************** May 7-9 1997, KEK, Tsukuba, Japan --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the official call for papers for the SARE3. Following the successful SARE2 Workshop in CERN, the organization committee is pleased to announce that the SARE3 will be held at KEK from May 7th to 9th 1997. As with the previous workshops, this Third Workshop will cover all aspects of simulation of accelerator-generated fields, including shielding, targetry, therapy, radiation damage, activation and waste transmutation, with special sessions devoted to code development and to the application of the codes at both hadron and electron accelerators. If you plan to present a paper at the SARE3 or attend SARE3, please fill out the attached form and send it to Hideo Hirayama at KEK (hideo.hirayama@kek.jp). The abstract of the paper must be sent to Hideo Hirayama by the end of November. This announcement is being sent to the SARE2 participants. If there are scientists who are interested in this workshop around you, please forward this to them. Following the SARE workshop, at Tohoku University on 12th and 13th May 1997, there will be a Specialists Meeting on "Shielding Aspects on Accelerators, Targets and Irradiation Facilities" which will continue the work in Arlington in April 1994 and in CERN in October 1995. The detailes of this Meeting will be established by the OECD/NEA Secretariat (E. Sartori). In order to improve coordination in this field, participants of the SARE Workshop are welcome to attend the Specialists Meeting as well. We expect that the reviews of the current situation and the presentation of new data will be given at the SARE3 workshop, whereas the Specialists Meeting will concentrate on reviewing work initiated at the previous meeting and on the determining new objectives in order to fill gaps in present knowledge. The Organizing Committee of SARE3 is: Alberto Fasso, fasso@slac.stanford.edu, SLAC Alfredo Ferrari, ferrari@mi.infn.it, INFN Milan Tony Gabriel, tag@ornl.gov, ORNL Hideo Hirayama, hideo.hirayama@kek.jp, KEK Setuya Kawabata, setuya.kawabata@kek.jp, KEK Nikolai Mokhov, mokhov@fnalv.fnal.gov, Fermilab Graham Stevenson, grs@cernvm.cern.ch, CERN Laurie Waters, waters@lampf.lanl.gov, LANL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Military oriented researchs are against KEK policy. This policy will apply on the acceptance of the paper at the conference sponsored by KEK. There are not many Guest Houses for foreign visitors in KEK. They are mainly used for invited scientists who stay relatively long time. Therefore we reserve rooms at the hotel near the center of Tsukuba city. Bus will be operated from the hotel to KEK. The price of a room is \7,210 for single and \12,700 for twin including a tax and service charge. If you want to use this hotel, please write it also on the attached form. The detail information for the hotel reservation will be required later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SARE3 Registration LAST NAME: FIRST NAME: TITLE: INSTITUTION/COMPANY: ADDRESS: TEL: FAX: E-MAIL: ( ) I plan to attend. ( ) I will submit a paper. ( ) I want to reserve a room at the hotel. ( ) Single ( ) Twin ====================================================================== ********************************************************************** Editor's note: This form will be implemented on the web in a more convenient form within the next few days. Please revisit the IARPE site later. ********************************************************************** NEWS FROM CORRESPONDENTS ====================================================================== News from CEBAF/TJNAF Bob May ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I. CEBAF Laser Development Program Underway In partnership with industry and the Navy, CEBAF has begun developing high-average-power, wavelength-tunable free-electron lasers (FELs) for cost-effective production applications in manufacturing and for basic and applied research in support of directed-energy weapons technology. The program derives from CEBAF's main mission of providing electron beams for electronuclear physics. Its central, synergistic technical challenges lie in further developing CEBAF's electron-source and superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) electron-acceleration technologies -- for application both in improvements and future upgrades of the main CEBAF accelerator and in FELs. In an FEL, unbound (free) relativistic electrons are transported from a linac to undulate transversely in the sinusoidal magnetic field of a "wiggler." The resulting light output is initially spontaneous emission, but the light bounces back and forth inside an optical cavity until it is amplified to saturation. Whereas a conventional laser typically produces a single wavelength, light from an FEL can be tuned throughout a wavelength range by varying the input electron energy or the magnetic field. With a continuous wave (CW) input beam, the FEL can produce its wavelength-tunable light at high average power. Light with these characteristics has many known applications, with still more envisioned, in the tailoring of surface characteristics of polymers, composites, ceramics, and metals for use in manufactured products. The linac is the technological heart of an FEL, and with a CEBAF-type SRF linac, an FEL can produce the needed CW input beam cost-effectively. The high accelerating gradients translate into a compact design with low capital cost. The negligible RF losses allow a high rate of recovery of the considerable unspent energy in the beam after it transits the wiggler. The beam is decelerated in an energy-recovery process that translates into low operating cost. II. CEBAF Renamed for Thomas Jefferson At May 24 laboratory dedication ceremonies, Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary officially renamed the former Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility for Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) -- the U.S. president (1801-1809) and polymath scientist who extensively promoted science and a scientific outlook in the United States. The former CEBAF is now officially called Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, a name the local news media have shortened to "Jefferson Lab." Jefferson studied at the nearby College of William and Mary and later founded the University of Virginia, both now members of the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), which operates Jefferson Lab for the Department of Energy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from LANL Scott Walker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE) start up is proceding on schedule. However, the start up operations in the Area A (H+) experimental area have been postponed for one month i.e. from August to September. (Area A's primary focus this year is Accelerator Production of Tritium radiation damage experiments). As a result, it is possible that H+ may be required to run through July of 1997 in order to complete the APT experiments. Two additional long pulse Spallation Source (LPSS) tests are planned for the coming run cycle using the MLNSC tungsten spallation target. The LANSCE/Weapons Neutron Research Center (WNR) will also complete additional development work on a dynamic (explosives) test facility using proton and neutron radiography. Environmental Safety and Health (ESH) has received approval to conduct more high energy neutron experiements at WNR this year. The experiments will be divided into two phases: 1) Fission chamber experiements and thick shield block measurements this fall. 2) Dosimetry inter-comparisons (anyone is invited to participate) and quazi-mono energetic 800 MeV neutrons this spring. (This is not a hard and fast schedule in that some spectral measurement experiments with proto-type high energy spheres and modified fission chambers will probably be conducted during the fall and the spring). Pulse structure for these experiments will probably be as follows: 1.3 micro-second micro pulse at either 20, 40, 60 or 120 Hz (the macro pulse structure hasn't been published). Most work will be completed in the 15 degree left flight path which currently has a 4 inch wide beamspot. The average neutron energy in the beam is modified by filtering out the low energy portion of the spectrum with larger and larger thicknesses of polyethylene. In this configuation, with 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 inches of poly filtration, the corresponding average energies are: 79.0, 113.3, 139.7, 175.7, 213.5, 303.0 MeV. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from KEK Hideo Hirayama --------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Status of KEKB All components of TRISTAN were removed from the TRISTAN tunnel at the end of April. Foundation work to install two rings and to put shields at the experimental area which will not have the detector was already started. The new buildings of the linac that is constructed to extend the existing 2.5 GeV linac will be completed at the end of August and the installation of the accelerator components will start in September. The construction of the new injection lines from the linac to the two KEKB rings will be started at the end of this year. II. Neutrino Beam Line The construction of the neutrino beam line was officially approved. This beam line is constructed to produce mu-neutrinos toward the Super-Kamiokande for the study of the neutrino oscillation. The target station and the magnetic hone will be constructed under the ground. The estimations of soil activations and ground water contaminations are the most important problems for us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from DESY Herbert Dinter --------------------------------------------------------------------- The winter shut down at HERA, the e+/p-storage ring, this year was extended to 4 months. The reason of such a long period was the installation of basic components of a future experiment called HERA-B. The aim of this experiment is to produce B-mesons and to investigate their decay modes with respect to CP-violations. The B-mesons are planned to be produced by means of a fixed target which is located very near to the circulating proton beam. The target consists of a thin metal wire and its position has to be optimized in a way that on one side sufficient B-mesons are produced and on the other the lifetime of the proton beam is not affected too much. Some test runs during the last year showed that a production rate of a few 10 MHz of secondary particles can be reached which leads to a production rate of some 10**8 B-mesons per year! As the target is positioned within the experimental hall the 10 MHz secondaries cause a lot of background which has to be shielded carefully. With HERA-B the forth and last experimental hall of HERA is occupied with an experimental set-up. In the winter shut down 1996/97 the installations will be accomplished and the experiment will begin to take data in the course of 1997. In the running period 1996 the radiation protection group has the opportunity to measure the background and to study the necessary shielding requirements. The e+ storage ring DORIS is in operation since April after a shut down and reinstallation of the RF-sections. DORIS supplies nearly 50 experiments of HASYLAB with synchrotron radiation. The energy of the circulating beam is 4.5 GeV, the stored current decreases from initially 120 mA to 60 mA within approximately 9 hours. The operation conditions are very stable and no radiation problems are encountered so far. The radiation protection group presently is faced with a lot of additional work caused by the abolition of the IBM mainframe and the MVS system. A great many of data files have to be transfered to a UNIX-system and new data bank systems have to be installed for the administration of personal doses, radiation sources and so on. This additional business coincides just with a reduction of the staff (from 7 to 6) and the retirement of 2 additional persons. Nevertheless, the future remains exciting, especially as the two prototype accelerators which are to prove the technical feasibility of a big linear collider are planned to become operational in 1996/97, and the reflections aiming to a linear collider project are in full progress. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from Fermilab Don Cossairt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- During the past few months, Fermilab has feverishly been making preparations for Fixed Target operations of the Tevatron. It has now been four years since the Fixed Target physics research program has been operated at Fermilab. During this hiatus, while the competing Collider program was content to be discovering the top quark, Fixed Target enthusiasts have, by no means, been idle. Instead, they have been engaged in intense preparations for the renewal of their research program. Likewise, during the past four years, the ability of the Tevatron accelerator complex to deliver beam at high intensity has been dramatically improved by the advent of the upgraded Linac and other improvements. During the upcoming fixed target run, the Tevatron is expected to be able to deliver up to twice the intensity per spill as possible previously. During recent months the Tevatron complex has to undergo a routine, but complex changeover to deliver beam to the Fixed Target experimental areas. Also during this period the shielding of the entire Fermilab complex has been reassessed to assure its adequacy for the new experiments and higher intensities. Experiments and beams have been reviewed for safety. Many experimenters have received radiation training and are being entered into Fermilab's personnel dosimetry system. A significant number of experimentalists have been issued radioactive sources and given appropriate training to use them in their work with their apparatus. As of this writing, initial operations are being conducted. Given the length of the hiatus, some "relearning" of how to conduct a Fixed Target Run is underway. Beam intensities are being increased gradually to allow for proper study of radiation levels and operating conditions. Full scale operations are expected to be underway by autumn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from CERN Manfred Hoefert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CERN's contribution this time contains mostly information on what by now is known as the CRII-RAD affair. In fact, CRII-RAD, a private association from Valence, France intruded on CERN's Meyrin (Suisse) site and the surrounding area on Saturday 20 January and Thursday 15 February 1996 to perform radiation measurements. In addition, on Saturday 3rd February a former employee of a French firm, who had worked at CERN until 1994, entered the fenced and locked radioactive waste storage area and collected a sample of water and sediments from a sump. CRII-RAD also affirms that on the same day the former employee found samples of various radioactive metal objects dumped in an ordinary dustbin. All these operations, performed without CERN's knowledge, were then described in a report issued by CRII-RAD to the press in Geneva on 25 April 1996 where they made several allegations against CERN in the field of radiation protection. Radiation protection at CERN having done solid and nearly unnoticed work over 40 years (the DG probably didn't even know that a RP group existed) was suddenly in the focus including TV, radio and all the local newspapers. So we had the task not only to prove that all the allegations made were wrong but in addition every statement had to be presented in polished French. A number of allegations concerned the missing formal education in radiation protection matters of contractors' personnel called to work in radiation areas of the Organization. Here we answered that CERN always attaches great importance to the instructions provided by the radiation protection technicians for people at their place of work. This is the best way of passing on the information needed for work in Controlled Areas to be done as effectively as possible while reducing the received doses to the minimum on the ALARA principle (As Low As Reasonably Achievable). CRII-RAD took dust samples outside our radioactive storage area i. e. an area inside the PS-ring where in principle only slightly radioactive accelerator material is stored in the open air. The radioactivity they measured was however largely below exemption limits that are published e. g. by the IAEA and that are applicable in Switzerland. In fact, the radioactivity in the ground and vegetation owing to the operation of CERN's accelerators in the freely accessible area of the Organization's grounds is below these exemption limit everywhere. The possibility of corrosion of the material stored in the open air is well known but measurements of possible radioactivity in the rainwater in the sump of the storage area made by CERN have always been negative. As the sediment in the settlement tank stays behind, the water running out of the sump exhibited a concentration of only 0.19 +/- 0.11 Bq/kg over a period of measurement of 72.2 hours in CRII-RAD's analysis! The part of the grounds around the storage area is a supervised area in which the average dose rate, less the natural background, must remain < 2.5 uSv/h. This has in any event been confirmed by CRII-RAD, which measured dose rates of between 0.2 and 0.7 uSv/h outside the storage area, without subtracting the natural background. They nevertheless cried alarm not considering that, while access to the supervised areas at CERN is free, ionizing radiation is continuously monitored on the site by active measurements (monitors) and passive measurements (TLD detectors). The isodose curves for the Meyrin and Prevessin sites drawn up every year and published in the RP Group's annual report, show that the exposure of anyone at CERN outside the controlled areas (in which personal dosimeters must be worn) remains very much below the annual dose limit for the population at large, which is 1 mSv at CERN and in Switzerland and 5 mSv in France. CRII-RAD made measurements outside the domain of the Organization in earth, plants and groundwater that turned out to be all negative. However, they found traces of manmade radionuclides of 60Co, 54Mn, 137Cs in the sediments and in water plants (fontinalis) harvested from a small river that touches CERN territory. How to deal with these traces of radioactivity. Let's assume somebody eats these plants. The dose commitment following incorporation could then be compared to the exposure of the human body by its own natural radioactivity the latter resulting in an annual natural exposure which is around 200 uSv from 40K alone. This represents a dose of 14 000 uSv over a life of 70 years. The ratio between the artificial dose for a person eating 1 kg of fresh fontinalis and his natural dose of 40K is two millionths! Finally CRII-RAD and collaborators "found" radioactivity in normal waste bins. This material was then transported illegally from Switzerland into France to be analysed in their laboratory in Valence. From an examination of copies of the photographs of some the items in their report it already appeared that the material came from CERN's locked radioactive storage area. Following several demands by CERN to return the "stolen" items CRII-RAD finally agreed to give us back part of them. We had to send one of our technicians to re-import our own material with all the necessary official transport papers! So we eventually confirmed the manipulation that had taken place. All the efforts to prove CERN's correctness demanded enormous resources and time even by the DG who scrutinized himself some of the official documents CERN sent to the local population, the French and Swiss Authorities that supervise us, and the mass media. As you may imagine these efforts only helped partly, as CRII-RAD had made the headlines with their allegations whilst CERN statements were only found in the newspapers on pages 2 and higher, and let's face it: damage was done. What did we learn from the CRII-RAD affair? I have submitted a paper on this subject to the San Jose Conference. My new young collaborators Drs. Marco Silari and Thomas Otto were kept out of all this because it was important that they familiarized themselves with their work. Marco, well known by the radiation protection community already, who had started with RP on 1 January took over Alberto Fasso's post as section leader of the SL survey section (no probation periods anymore at CERN!) and was also immediately given the task of co-ordination with the European Union that sponsors CERN's Reference Radiation Facility. He will continue with his interest in instrumentation. He also supervises a doctoral student: Mlle Ulrici will particularly follow the development of doses from synchrotron radiation in LEP where CERN hopes to reach W energies of 86 GeV per beam during this year. Thomas is a physicist who has worked in nuclear physics and started on 1 March. He was given the responsibility of section leader for individual dosimetry and calibration. This Section had been without a leader for nearly a year so many of the routine activities must be looked into. As a compensation a couple of interesting intercomparisons in the field of individual dosimetry are taking place this year including a re-calibration of our 137Cs standard source (done) and of RP's in principle obsolete Pu-Be neutron source (to be done). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from the JRM Laboratory Tracy N. Tipping ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The James R. Macdonald Laboratory is an accelerator-based, atomic physics research facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and located on the campus of Kansas State University. The accelerator systems in the JRM Lab include a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator, a superconducting linear accelerator, an electron-cyclotron resonance ion source, and a cryogenic electron beam ion source. The atomic collisions studies conducted at the JRM Lab typically involve heavy ions colliding with various target atoms. I say "typically" because experimenters always find a way to use the equipment in a way for which it was not designed. Since we are a relatively small laboratory, we do not have an accelerator operations staff. As a result, the experimenters run the machines themselves. During a recent run, the experimenters decided that they wanted to run a proton beam on their target to compare the results with the heavy ion beams they had recently run. As a matter of convenience, they chose to turn off the superconducting linear accelerator (LINAC) and use it simply as a beam pipe and inject 10 MeV protons from the tandem Van de Graaff, through the LINAC, and onto their target. The LINAC was designed to accelerate heavy ions and in fact is not capable of accelerating lighter ions such as protons, deuterons, etc. Because of this, the Faraday cups along the LINAC system were designed more for high vacuum integrity and convenience than radiation considerations. When the experimental group ran 10 MeV protons through the LINAC, we suddenly found that we had a prolific neutron source when the Faraday cups were in the beam and after the run we found that we had four Faraday cups that had been activated. A quick gamma assay of the activated cups reveals that we converted iron-56 to cobalt-56 in the stainless steel cups. So now we have four new Faraday cups in the LINAC system with high Z (tantalum) inserts to reduce the radiation from the cups should some of the experimental groups decide to use the LINAC as a beam pipe again. For additional information about the JRM Lab, check out our home page at: http://www.phys.ksu.edu/area/jrm/ On my personal home page (http://www.phys.ksu.edu/~tipping), I have a collection of links to several health physics related sites. In addition to HP links, you will find links to other environmental, safety, and health sites as well as links to accelerator related sites. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- News from SLAC Ralph Nelson ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 1996 EGS4 course recently held in France - A Brief Report It all started with a casual conversation between Jean BARTHE and Alex BIELAJEW at the 7th EGS4 course in Capri, Italy, June 1994.... The 9th EGS4 course was held at Le Mercure Hotel June 10-13 in the seaside resort town called La Grande Motte, a short drive from Montpellier. This was a four-day hands-on course with lectures in basic Monte Carlo theory, applications, and EGS4 system usage. In addition there were laboratories to put into practice what was learned during the lectures. Despite the incredibly beautiful location and the warm weather, sunny every day and as warm as 37 Celsius, the lectures started promptly at 8:30 am and continued until about 17:30 or 18:00, with many of the 37 participants staying on much later to do extra work on the demanding laboratory exercises. A common complaint was that there was little time left in the day to enjoy the local surroundings and that the 1 hour lunches were too short to permit some siesta time! However, every EGS course is not all hard work. There are social activities as well. There was an evening boat trip to the nearby pleasure port of Camargue. The culminating social event was the banquet held on the last evening. Diplomas were handed out to the graduating EGS-Perts. The highlight of this evening was the saxaphone playing of Jean-Pierre NADAI of the University of Montpellier, who did much of the local organization. Jean-Pierre assembled a jazz ensemble from local musicians and performed for hours familiar numbers from the standard jazz repertoire. This course was an enormous success. The following people were directly responsible: Jean BARTHE - CEA/Saclay (establishing the course and general coordination), Jean-Claude LEGARS - CREUFOP/University of Montpellier (organization and financial administration), Jean-Pierre NADAI - CREUFOP/University of Montpellier (organization, local arrangements and truly wonderful musicianship), Nicole PICHON - CREUFOP/ University of Montpellier (local organization and attention to all the small details). To the staff and students of the University of Montpellier, for their help with the local arrangements, to all the 37 participants, whose energy and interest made this course a reality---there will be EGS courses in the future but this one will be very difficult to surpass. Perhaps we shall all meet again at the same place sometime in the future for another such event. Alex Bielajew, Ralph Nelson, Suzan Walker - 1 July 1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO SUBSCRIBE / UPDATE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS ====================================================================== To add yourself to the mailing list for the IARPE Newsletter, send an e-mail message to listserv@slac.stanford.edu The body of your message should contain the following command: subscribe iarpe-l Please don't forget to update your e-mail address if you move, change jobs or just change your computing environment. The update consists in canceling the old by 'unsubscribe' and submitting a new subscription, as illustrated below: unsubscribe iarpe-l your_old_email_address subscribe iarpe-l end If the body of your message, as in this example, contains more than a single line/command, it is good practice to finish with the 'end' command, especialy if your mailer adds a signature. If you experience problems with subscribing/updating, please send me an e-mail to vylet@slac.stanford.edu and I will do it for you. ====================================================================== CLOSING THOUGHTS ====================================================================== "A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible." Freeman Dyson