Qi 61 2 Mr Herbert M Parker Chainnan Office of Director Battelle Memorial Institute Pacific Northwest laboratory Richland Washington 99352 Dr Edward E Held Laboratory of Radiation Ecology Univeraity of Washingt n Seattle Washington 9 l ll S Dr W J Bair Biology Department Battelle Memorial Institute Pacific Northwest laboratory Richland Washington 99352 Dr Bostwick H Ketchlllll Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole Massachusetts 02543 Dr Max E Britton Arctic Program Earth Sciences Division Office of Naval Research Washington D C 20360 Dr Wright H LanghBlD 107160 Health Division Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory P O Box 1663 Los Alamos New Mexico 87544 THE CHAIRM N'S ACCOUNT OF ntE PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE SAFETY EVALUATION PANEL FOR THULE INCIDENT FO ING DOD-AEC BRIEFING FEBRUARY 51 1968 Dr M Carl Walske Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy assigned three tasks to the Panel as follows 1 To evaluate the radiological situation 2 To consider necessary clean-up if any posing to the Panel the question Are we leaving a ha i ard to any biological species 3 Following the main operation to define an appropriate program for monitoring the biosphere Dr Walake reminded the Panel ·that relations with the Danes are important although it 18 the primary function of the Panel to offer its best technical opinion on the various questions The' ·immediate task of the Pane 1 is to identify what is known and what needs to be known I The Panel wishes to thank all those ptesent who contributed to the e cellent briefing The general substance is not docU1Dented here except with respect to a few points on which the Panel felt action might be taken fairly promptly We are told that 38% of the total plutonium burden has been located on the aroun e ite of the crash 6% of the burden is within the USilJOte1itftatr¥E8 nding t 100 000 counts per minute es measured on the 326 U S ATOMIC ENERGY RG _ _ _ c oMMWIO N Collection J 12 $ Box I1I McC W 1i b r _ 1·- ' '' 'l'Jfl · '3 -i 0 Folder bulc fl ' •deNt f'1 2 c 1 - k Id Jc- I Oiil8IAI JJSF Oil¥ • 2 • available instrumentation This curve defines an area approximately 500 feet by 2 000 feet or approximately 20 acres in extent The Panel emphasizes that 95Z of the known radioactive debris 18 within this area No monitoring of water below the ice hes been done although it is possible that some debri• may have penetrated in the immediate events at the time of the crash lt was reported that a substantial problem arose from the blowing of debris in the strong surface winds In particular as much as 500 pounds of presumably contaminated chaff 111ay have blown several miles The attractive• ness of bright pieces of metal such as this to the Greenlanders was particularly mentioned Or Wright Langham reported that the known amount of plutonium debris diluted in one cubic kilometer of water would reach the conventional drinking water tolerance lf diluted in the entire contents of North Star Bay there would be an additional safety factor of 60 000 However the currents in the Bay are not at all well known and there is no reliable description of the probable extent of mixing Meteorology at the time of the crash is fairly well known and there is a good description of the initial fire plume Hunting on the ice by Creenlanders is temporarily restricted Dr H D Bruner Division of Biology and Medicine AEC stated that this affects 60 to 70 people directly and up to 200 families in part There ie no problem concerning substitute food supplies to this population N Dr J Wolfe Division of Biology and Medicine AEC said that the biota of this gene-ral area are fairly well known and there should be no· particular problem with rare or unusual fot 111$ It was noted that the ice will be cOSllpletely gone by July and wi l begin to break up in April If recOt111Denda• tions for renioval of debris ice or snow are made time is of the essence The work must be completed say by April l 1968 Any requiring heavy equipment should be completed at the earlieH possible opportunity to ff VE minimize risk of life in those operations J OE ARC During the meeting Dr Walske introduced a manorandum from Gen R 0 Hunziker requesting C01l¥ 1ents on a proposed sampling program by the Danes The first section referred to collection of snow ice water plankton bott0111 solid and soil samples The Panel 1 a reaction was that these samples would be extremely useful In the second porUon a program to examine three ring seals three bearded seals two walru9es ravens and a white fox as well as shellfiah and the bottom samples was proposed for the Danes with duplication by the U S It was the opinion of the Panel that examination of t se large animals would not be constructive at this time As will be seen later the monitoring program that might be developed from Panel recO lllllendationg would concentrate on the other end of the food chains We would anticipate that cooperation with the Danes might be offered in their intended sampling program without duplication by our scientists It was noted that the Danish program it I iO ll i USE O lfli - 3 - iuy io f•ct be useful in the public relations aense of allowing the Daniah acieotists to •ssure people of the present edibility of game The memorandum alao referred to measure111ents of site bay currents The Panel •trongly recommends that these measurements be carried out to the fulleat possible extent The Panel's preliminary considerations of Dr Walske'e three questions will be given below in terms of the Chairman's recollection lbe Chairman hopes that Panel members will proffer corrections to any points which appear to be misrepresented and will mention any significant items that have been inadvertently omitted Question 1 VALUAnON OF THE RADIOLOGICAL SITUA' ION The Panel congiders that perhaps one to two kilograms of plutonilllll in the form of oxide smoke could have gone into the initial fire plume along with the total load of tritium presuma ly converted to tritiated water The Panel strongly rec ends that the best available calculation of the probable dispersion of this should be put on the record lf it can be shown that the cloud intercepted land especially any portion of Greenland or adjacent islands an attempt should be made to correlate ground contamination with the model calculation The Panel considers the risk of inhalation of plutonium oxide particles to be very much greater than that expected to ariae from ingestion of plutonium from the water medium Deposition of plutonium oxide particles in the lung of animals will definitely cau e lung cancer aod presumably this may also occur in man In the light of present knowledge it is impossible to deny that this may occur from a single radioactive particle The Panel therefore hopes that the responsible persons on the site will both take reasonable steps to reduce the possibility of plutonium oxide debris becoming airborne and will as far as possible obtain factual measurements of the air contami• oation As indicated to the Panel the available plutonium oxide is mostly well fixed on other material · but present evidence is quite unsatisfactory in terms of this Panel expressing an opinion on the wafety from air contamination point of view In general in the abs'ence of any specific agents leading to air contamination it would appear that -the radiological situation is quiescent It is very probably quite safe to allow the whole residual contamination on the ice to drop into'the water and be dispersed as t he ice melts DOE ARCHIVES Before any firmer conclueion is made core samples of the ice which we understand are currently being obtained should be kept in the frozen condition and submitted to such organizations as AFTAC and other appropriate teMts eee 0Nt1 - 4 - organizations for detailed analyses of distribution of the plutoni1 1111 throughout the depth of the ice and more specifically to deten ine the actual particle •ize for comparison with the sizes which have been ueed · in the calculation called for above Panel members pointed out that we shall very probably wish we had more of these samples than have been taken We urge that plans be lllade to aupent this program although it may realistically be necessary to allow more of the samples to melt We urge that efforts be made to maximize the number that can be transported in the frozen condition Question 2 CLEAN-UP lt seems to be agreed that clean•up of casual pieces on the surface of the ice should be as complete as possible This is primarily because of the risk of it further spread in the strong winds and of the attractive nuisance of such pieces the radar chaff The current proposal appears to be o plow the debris and snow into windrows and to further stabilize these with foam The Panel agrees that this 18 better than leaving the material randomly spread but eome members wonder whether it is prudent to leave the windrows on the ice so that they eventually fall through or whether to arrange to collect the debris on land after the enow and ice have melted No useful guidance was developed on this point at this stage Although the Panel expects that it may agree with the preliminary calculation• that the whole of the debrie could sa eiy fall into the Bay it does point out that 951 of the knoW'I contamination is contained within a manageable area of 20 acres The Panel requests that a pr0111pt engineering study be made of the feasibility and operational safety of removing most of this contamination This will involve getting prompt information on the depth within the ice of the main plutonium contamination as found from the core samples and the consi4eration of scraping melting towing ice fragments or more ingenious methods of getting this portion to a safe storage point It appears to ti the view of the Panel that a vigorous attempt to remove this main contami• · nation would be well received by the Danee and would be so received if it were not possible to complete the attempt before the time of ice break-up The Panel is not wholly chant ed by calculations which might suggest permi tbl• contamination of the sea water The has been a fairly vigorous difference of opinion between U S and Russian s ientists for exemple on the fate of radioactive materials dispersed in the- ocean Some members of the Panel at least believe that the Russian position has been substantiated in many aspects It would therefore seem prudent to make a strong effort- to remove the main focus of potential contamination at the crash site · pOEARCHIV If it is found necessary to leave most of the debris at the scene the Panel recomsnends that a U S expert knowledgeable in the etructure and behavior of arctic ice cooperate closely with t e Danish scientists at the ite It 8f I8W UiE QJlil' 1 - - UL il'UI llU a ¥ appeaTed to be a general opinion of the Panel that the provision of a larger body of U S scientists resident at the Base throughout the next etudy would prove of great value especially in reconciling possibly divergent views with the Danish scientists at a later date gueation 3 DEFINITION OF A MONITORING Pjl OGRAM It would seem premature to this Panel to define a rational monitoring program at this time however aome general leads can be put forward In any case in which the plutonilllll contamination is in a water medium the uptake and retention by any organism tested is believed to be low The Panel requests however that a complete bibliography of past research in this area be assembled for reference Until the day that it can be looked at in more detail the Panel believes that plutoniUl'll will neither pass to larger ani1118ls or man without being first observable in detritus algae plankton or a few specific animals such as the IITUSSel The Panel would recommend that a monitoring program would emphasize these aspects rather than the extensive collection and examination of la ger animals There may be some changes in thi recommendation later One notes that because plutonium is assimilated in the animal to 9uch a small degree any plutonium intake nonaally leads to easily measurable contamination in the feces It may well be that these indicators both from mammals and from the aquatic birds may eventually provide an economical check on the possibility of long-tem contamination around the site l OE ARCHIVES OPJH Mr·tin '4 tf'