Further Information:
Tritium: Tracking the Molecules of Life website
Why we have a National Tritium Labeling Facility
Estimated average doses from natural radiation sources
Lab Director Charles Shank statement
Frequently Asked Questions about tritium and the NTLF
Responses to additional tritium questions
1997 Lab Site Environmental Report
National Tritium Labeling Facility website
Department of Energy:
Letter to Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste
Environmental Protection Agency Statements:
Mixed wastes treatability study (2-5-99)
Ambient air monitoring sampling results (1/19/99)
Michael S. Bandrowski statement to the Berkeley City Council (10-20-98)
Betsy Curnow statement to the Berkeley City Council (10-20-98)
Federal Clean Air Act considerations (10-20-98)
Federal Superfund considerations (10-20-98)
Berkeley Tritium Issues Workgroup (10-20-98)
Letter to Berkeley Board of Education (2-18-97)
Articles from Currents, the Lab newspaper:
Vegetation Assessment Shows Negligible Environmental Impact (1/29/99)
Berkeley City Council Rejects Activists' Requests on Tritium Issue (11/20/98)
Berkeley City Council Hearing Puts Emissions In Perspective (11/6/98)
Independent Testing Effort Stalled (4/17/98)
Risk Assessment Study: Lab's Tritium Emissions Well Below Safe Levels (6/13/97)
Tritium Issue Under Close Scrutiny by Lab, Community (6/13/97)
Lab Supports Independent Monitoring of Tritium (1/24/97)
Berkeley Lab Reaffirms Safety of National Tritium Labeling Facility (11/22/96)
NATURAL SOURCES OF RADIOACTIVITY
The average person in the U.S. receives an annual dose from natural radioactive
sources of approximately 100 to 400 millirems. In the Bay Area, the average annual
exposure is estimated to be 260 millirems. This dosage comes from a
number of different sources. Typical annual exposures can including the following
sources:
- Cosmic rays, 28 millirem
- Rocks and soil, 28 millirem
- Medical x-rays, 39 millirem
- Nuclear medicine, 14 millirem
- Radon, 200 millirem (average U.S.)
- Radon, 100 millirem (average Berkeley)
- Radium wrist watch, 3 millirem
- Tritium wrist watch, .6 millirem
- Radium dial alarm clocks, .7 to .9 millirem
- Cigarettes (1 1/2 packs day, to lung), 8,000 millirem
- Building materials, masonry, 7 millirem
- Road construction materials, 4 millirem
- Coal-fired power plant, to lung, 1 to 4 millirem
- Cooking with natural gas stove, 6 to 9 millirem
- Home ionization smoke detector, 1 millirem
- Porcelain in false teeth, to gum, 60,000 millirem
- Thorium rose-tinted eyeglasses, to eye, 4,000 millirem
- Uranium glaze in dinnerware, to skin, 2,400 millirem
- Gas lantern mantles for camping, .1 to .4 millirem
Among occasional exposures are the following:
- Dental x-rays (each, to mouth), 25-35 millirem
- Chest x-ray (each) 25 millirem
- GI series or cardiac catheterization, 2,000 to 10,000 millirems
Further Information:
- Health Physics Society
- American Nuclear Society
- Radioactivity in Nature (University of Michigan website)
*260 millirems source: Committees on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations (BEIR V), Health Effects of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, National Academy Press (1990).