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Grand Canyon Visitors May Have Been Exposed To Radiation For Years (azcentral.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the unsafe-levels-of-radiation dept.

joeflies writes: Park safety manager Elston Stephenson provides details about buckets of uranium that exposed visitors to radiation, and the subsequent cover up. The radiation was detected by a teenager that brought a Geiger counter to the building, and was subsequently "cleaned" up by employees equipped with dish washing gloves and a broken mop handle. "If you were in the Museum Collections Building (2C) between the year 2000 and June 18, 2018, you were 'exposed' to uranium by OSHA's definition," Stephenson wrote. "The radiation readings, at first blush, exceeds (sic) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safe limits. [...] Identifying who was exposed, and your exposure level, gets tricky and is our next important task." Stephenson said he had repeatedly asked National Park executives to inform the public, but never got a response.

"According to Stephenson, the uranium specimens had been in a basement at park headquarters for decades and were moved to the museum building when it opened, around 2000," reports AZCentral. "One of the buckets was so full that its lid would not close. Stephenson said the containers were stored next to a taxidermy exhibit, where children on tours sometimes stopped for presentations, sitting next to uranium for 30 minutes or more. By his calculation, those children could have received radiation dosages in excess of federal safety standards within three seconds, and adults could have suffered dangerous exposure in less than a half-minute."

30 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Explains the reviews by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The canyon is fantastic! I had an absolutely glowing experience; our tour group lit up with joy."

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Explains the reviews by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unfortunately, there is enough radiation risk ignorance that some people might actually stay away and miss the experience. The headline itself is a great example... here's more news.. WE"VE ALL BEEN EXPOSED TO RADIATION FOR YEARS!

      NRC 'limits' are so conservatively low you can get many times that exposure with no real world risk.

    2. Re:Explains the reviews by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Informative

      "The report indicated radiation levels at "13.9 mR/hr" where the buckets were stored."

      "The commission lists a maximum safe dosage for the public, beyond natural radiation, is no more than 2 millirems per hour, or 100 per year."

      If you spent a day (7-8h) around the bucket then you received your yearly dose. I would feel bad for anyone that worked there and received continuous doses.

    3. Re:Explains the reviews by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

      This was 4000 times the safe limit for exposure in 30 minutes.

      No, it is 4000 times the federal regulatory limit, which is way lower than the safe limit because of all the extra caution and margins of error built into the federal regulations.

      This was naturally occurring uranium ore. If you don't ingest it, and you have enough ventilation to prevent radon build up, it isn't that dangerous.

    4. Re:Explains the reviews by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Informative

      https://xkcd.com/radiation/

    5. Re:Explains the reviews by sfcat · · Score: 4, Informative

      The report indicated radiation levels at "13.9 mR/hr" where the buckets were stored, and "800 mR/hr" on contact with the ore. Just 5 feet from the buckets, there was a zero reading. The abbreviation, "mR" typically stands for milliroentgen, a measurement roughly equivalent to a millirem, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

      So if there was no reading 5 feet from the buckets, then the radiation was most entirely alpha decay. Those buckets must have been hot. The bigger problem is that they left a huge bucket of poison around children. The radiation thing is mostly a scare tactic unless you lived within 5 ft of those buckets. Also, I'm surprised they gave the units of measure they did. If they had used effective dose (Sieverts) it would have been 20x higher and much more scary.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    6. Re:Explains the reviews by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Informative

      13.9 mRem is 139 microsieverts. So using that chart, one hour of exposure is somewhere between "Approximate total dose received at Fukushima Town Hall over two weeks following accident" and "EPA yearly release limit for a nuclear power plant". And about a third of "yearly dose from natural potassium in your body". Not great, but it could be a lot worse.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    7. Re:Explains the reviews by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      So if there was no reading 5 feet from the buckets, then the radiation was most entirely alpha decay.

      Well, yes. Uranium is an alpha emitter. You can generally protect yourself quite well from radiation from natural uranium (not enriched uranium) by, well, wearing clothes. If worse comes to worst, holding a piece of paper between you and the uranium would be sufficient. Or wrapping the uranium in a couple layers of decent quality toilet tissue....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    8. Re:Explains the reviews by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think he's just trying to keep things in perspective. This wasn't a bundle of plutonium rods, it was naturally occurring radioactive rocks. They look like rocks, they feel like rocks, and they're only slightly more dangerous than any other rocks. I guess it's a good thing no kid threw one at another kid, because that would be more harmful.

      It is best that they were moved away but if you're picturing a glowing green bucket with radiation symbols on it, you're over-imagining.

      As for NRC limits, a single CT scan exceeds those.

      Apparently, the person raising the alarm here has a history of blowing things out of proportion.

    9. Re:Explains the reviews by sfcat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Trans-Uranic elements from U decay actually emit alpha, beta and gamma. You know nothing about this. An unsealed container was accessible by anyone for over 20 years, and one microgram in your lungs is deadly potentially.

      You're a moron. Not potentially, you're a moron.

      There are actually very few gamma emitters in general. Almost all radioactive decay is alpha and beta. And there are no gamma emitters in U-238 or U-235's decay chains. There are however different isotopes of Uranium that do emit gamma radiation but those usually have to be made in a reactor and can't be made from natural Uranium ore (no matter how much reprocessing you do to it). And Uranium's real hazard is that its poisonous, as in like Arsenic and unlike Thorium which is inert. The radioactivity is just window dressing here. The GP is right, alpha radiation isn't really a hazard as its blocked by clothes and is in sunlight. You can't even write one accurate sentence about this topic, maybe you should stop posting about it and clearly you shouldn't be throwing insults at others when its you are the uninformed and ignorant person here.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    10. Re:Explains the reviews by sjames · · Score: 2

      Fact, breathing a single microgram could kill you.

      There's that panicy overblowing thing again. First, read this. Note how 30 years later, he's fine after handling the rock and keeping it in his room for a year. If half an hour was 4000 times the limit, this kid got 70 million times the limit or more (since he actually crumbled it in his hands)..

      Again, it was best to remove the uranium rocks, but it is doubtful that any harm has been done.

      I say this as one of millions of people who have had radioactive materials directly injected into a vein.

      Read very carefully: 5 feet away from the buckets, radiation was at background levels. No residual radiation was found where the buckets were sitting.

    11. Re:Explains the reviews by sfcat · · Score: 2

      Thorium however is not "inert" and that nothing statement is false, but I still know what you meant.

      Thorium is biologically inert because its not water soluble. So its unable to take part in any sort of biological reaction with tissue. Its not a noble element but that's a moot point. Also, alpha radiation is blocked by most things including clothing, the bucket in the article, sunscreen, air, water, and most other subsistences. The reason why we are so hard on you on this point is that you can use alpha radiation to really manipulate the amount of radiation you announce. It there is a lot of it, it makes the situation seem much more scary than it really is. Gamma radiation is the really scary stuff but that doesn't get a multiplier since it doesn't do as much damage per nuclear interaction but very little stops it and that causes it to do damage internally and to things far away from the thing emitting radiation. Like I said, you would feel the physical effects of the alpha radiation far before it actually hurt you and that's what makes it less dangerous and what makes radiation so scary in the first place. The ability to detect it without a device makes it far less dangerous and scary for most people. Somehow, not for you...

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    12. Re:Explains the reviews by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      What all the parent posters and XKCD are missing is that it's not just the dosage, it's the manner of exposure. Temporary exposure to an xray machine stops the moment the machine is turned off. A bucket of uranium specimens may contain dust that can get inside the body. Thus it needs to be handled carefully to avoid that, and in this case it appears that the staff had little idea of what they were doing.

      It's the old "banana equivalent dose" fallacy. The body processes and removes excess potassium, but caesium accumulates in certain organs and does long term damage, with the effects only becoming apparent years later.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    13. Re:Explains the reviews by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The GP is correct, uranium dust particles are dangerous. If they get in your lungs then your clothes or a sheet of paper won't help you. Note that your lungs are not normally exposed to sunlight either.

      That's the problem here. They had buckets of the stuff lying around, one without the lid even on it. Properly handled it can be safe, but it wasn't properly handled.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. The whole area is uranium by guruevi · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can pick up uranium ore of the ground, it gets stuck in your shoe and sets off sensors at the airport, it's a nuisance but it's not 'dangerous', people get more radiation working a few months on the ISS and I don't see Scott Kelly dying of radiation sickness or cancer.

    Moreover this was (according to the article) kept in a bucket. Any harmful radiation from these sources can be held back by a sheet of paper.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  3. Alpha by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Informative

    Uranium gives off alpha radiation, which is effectively stopped by the layer of dead skin cells on your body. If you ground it up into a talcum-powder consistency and snorted it, then you'd be in trouble, but anything less than that and you're fine.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Alpha by mark-t · · Score: 2

      When I was in high school my science teacher passed around a sample of uranium in a sealed transparent container that resembled a hollow acrylic cylinder. Handling it, you could tell from how the weight distribution changed as you tipped the cylinder from one side to the other so that the small rock would move inside to one edge that the container itself was very light, but I'll never forget how that tiny rock, itself resembling a more or less ordinary grey pebble barely more than a couple of cm across at its widest point, just seemed almost unnaturally heavy for its size to me.

      And to be honest, I don't know for sure what material that cylinder was actually made of. It looked like acrylic or plastic, but I had always assumed that the container was made of something special to protect us from radiation, but thinking about it now, it was probably just to keep us from getting any uranium dust directly on our skin.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    2. Re:Alpha by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative

      The decay chain of U-238 includes many isotopes which give off beta and gamma radiation. Most of that energy is given off via alpha particles. But it's not true that a sheet of paper or your dead skin cells will block all if it.

      That said, this was uranium ore, which is typically only about 0.1% uranium. Uranium and its decay products have a radioactivity of 12,356 Bq (decays per second) per gram, so you'd expect ore to be about 12.4 Bq per gram.

      In contrast, potassium chloride is commonly used as a salt substitute in low-sodium salt products. It's about 0.0118% naturally-occurring K-40, which is radioactive (beta radiation even). That gives potassium a radioactivity of about 0.032 Bq/mg = 32 Bq per gram

      So the exposure visitors got from these buckets of uranium ore was probably less than you get walking past the water softener bags in the supermarket. In fact, looking at the table on page 2 of the potassium chloride link, you'd expect baked potatoes, milk, orange juice, bananas, hamburgers, and roast chicken to be more radioactive (gram per gram) than these buckets of uranium ore.

    3. Re:Alpha by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      Uranium decays through alpha emission. You can block the radiation with tissue paper (or a layer of dead skin cells). The cylinder was probably acrylic, because it's cheap, transparent, and doesn't break easily.

    4. Re:Alpha by sfcat · · Score: 2

      The decay chain of U-238 includes many isotopes which give off beta and gamma radiation. Most of that energy is given off via alpha particles. But it's not true that a sheet of paper or your dead skin cells will block all if it.

      Not quite. Its mostly alpha and beta emitters but no gamma emitters. That's why its not really so dangerous. Before it hurts you, you would get a sunburn. and probably move away. For the gamma emitters you are probably thinking of U-232 which is Uranium's answer to Pu-238. It glows red hot in high purities. It also matters what else is in the ore. If its U-238 decay products, its likely a lot more radioactive than your estimate because those decay products have much shorter half-lives than U-238 and thus emit more radiation per gram and their lower densities don't make up for the difference in half-life. Also, this radiation was almost entirely alpha radiation as evidenced by the fact it only was measurable less than 5ft from the buckets. Those measurement levels they gave were no joke and not the usual over hysteria about radiation. It would be like walking into an active x-ray machine but with no warning. That's probably not so great but not dangerous enough to lose your head over. Also, Uranium is poisonous. That's the greater danger here.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
  4. Exposure 600x federal guidelines? by MrScience · · Score: 2

    I'm not understanding the flippant comments here. It certainly seems significant that children were receiving at least 600 *times* the radiation guidelines.

    --

    You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco

  5. Re:"Radiation is good for you" by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

    more likely Ann Coulter would rail against government incompetence and the dishonesty of career government bureaucrats. Because you know, that's basically what happened here.

  6. kudos by bugs2squash · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kudos to the teen with the Geiger counter. Maybe this will spark a trend of citizen radiation hunters.

    --
    Nullius in verba
    1. Re:kudos by hoofie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "a trend of citizen radiation hunters:" - God no. The last thing we need is morons wandering around with geiger counters clicking away with zero idea of the concepts of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, dosage, background radiation etc.

      Anyway what kind of teen walks around with a Geiger counter ? When I was a teen the only thing I walked around with was a semi-permanent erection...

  7. buckets of uranium by schklerg · · Score: 4, Funny

    Would be a great name for a rock band.

    --
    Be Excellent To Each Other
  8. Re:Today in stupid shit that's killing Linux by slimshady76 · · Score: 2

    Or just sudo su -

  9. Only low and constant levels. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Radiation is good for you" That's what Ann Coulter says and I believe her. I rilly do.

    Actually (presuming your genetics is typical of the population and you don't already live on a high mountain, in an otherwise high radiation area, or spend much of your time on airliners in flight), a low level of additional ionizing radiation IS good for you.

    (Not pulses, like chest X-rays or radiation therapy, though. And not high levels of bio-binding or concentrated particulate radioactive material, like radio-iodine from being downwind of the Hanford experiment, generalized nuclear fallout from atmospheric tests, battles, or reactor accidents, strontium-90 from dirty bombs, etc. Low, constant, somewhat-raised background is the ticket.)

    This was discovered in the early atomic era: The medicos were looking for an increased cancer risk among the people living in Denver and other places with higher background radiation (from altitude and cosmic radiation, or local low-level radiation from minerals like granite). But they found lower risk instead. WTF?

    Turns out that ionizing radiation creates free radicals in your cells. These aren't the ONLY way it damages DNA, but it's a major one. And your cell's metabolism puts out a LOT MORE free radicals than the background radiation does.

    Your cells also make free radical detoxifying compounds (and DNA repair cellular gadgetry). But it's expensive in nutritional energy and components. So over evolutionary time cells made a tradeoff, buiding a feed-forward mechanism to adjust the amount of block-it/fix-it molecule production according to the level of nastiness, to save the valuable resources for other aspects of staying alive.

    People in the first and second world generally don't have any problem getting enough food energy and nutritional components. (Quite the opposite, in fact, as the fad diet industry will attest.) But they still have this conservative "thermostat" adjusting the "air condidtioner".

    But it happens that (until the level is high enough to start saturating the mechanism at the high end), raising the background radiation from what's typical raises the protective-molecule production by MORE than the amount needed to compensate for the added radiation. Like turning on a heater under the air-conditioner thermostat leading to the apartment getting colder, the extra background radiation provokes extra protection that blocks MORE damage from other sources than the radiation itself adds. There's a net improvement.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:Only low and constant levels. by Uecker · · Score: 2

      This is not the scientific consensus. The scientific consensus is that ionizing radiation is harmful at any level and this has been demonstrated even for very low doses. For example, in this study which demonstrated the risk of leukemia and brain tumors from CT scans in childhood (published in the Lancet, no less): https://www.thelancet.com/jour...

      Of course, as others have pointed out. the chemical risks from uranium are much higher than the radiological risks which are very low, but this does not change the fact that risk of ionizing is non-zero even for very low doses. Maybe Ann Coulter is not exactly the best source of information.

  10. That's why by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's probably why it always felt so gosh darn warm and cozy in there.

    But seriously, I question the accuracy of the article....you'd have to be using some sort of processed uranium to get the level of radioactivity claimed, you won't get that from common ore specimens.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  11. Re:Bad measurement? by dfsmith · · Score: 2

    I put a rough 5-gallon bucket shape into the dose calculator for 0.33% uranium ore and got 20uSv/hr at 1cm distance. Still a factor of 400 off (but not the 20,000 you got: article said 800mRem/hr contact). http://www.wise-uranium.org/rd...