The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011 made it apparent that releases of fission products to marine environments is a very real possibility. Additional data on the movement of material through marine environments can be used by radioecology personnel to assist with both ecosystem protection as well as environmental cleanup...
Radiation protection has historically been from a human protection approach, therefore many studies have neglected the potential dose contribution from the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) in animal studies. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) utilized simplified geometric shapes with Dose Conversion Factors (DCF) based on homogenized models for the trout...
Greenhouse studies were conducted to determine interception, absorption, and
translocation values for foliar applied ³⁶Cl. Foliar interception and uptake of contaminated irrigation water by crops is a major pathway for the transport of radionuclides to human beings in scenarios relevant to the waste disposal community. Performance assessments of many repositories...
The Oregon Department of Energy has set up recommendations for agricultural crop and non-crop embargo zones following an accidental or purposeful radioactive release. Of special interest are the FDA’s Derived Intervention Levels (DIL) and the state’s exposure limit of 0.4µR/hr. At the Oregon State University Emergency Response Research and Support...
In the last decade regulatory bodies have begun to implement standards to protect populations of non-human biota (NHB) from the consequences of radiation exposure. This is a departure from previous regulatory frameworks which were concerned only with protecting man. The implementation of these new standards has started an ongoing discussion...
A system for radiological dosimetry for nonhuman biota developed by International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) relies on calculations that utilize the Monte Carlo simulations of simple, ellipsoidal geometries with internal radioactivity distributed homogeneously throughout. In this manner it is quick and easy to estimate whole-body dose rates to biota....
Uranium is the most common radionuclide that found in the nature. It is a radionuclide with a very low specific activity. There is limited data on plan uptake of uranium. This research was to determine the plant uptake of uranium, calculate the concentration ratio, and estimate the dose from eating...
Honeybees and honey combs are good indicators of environmental contamination and can be important for dose calculations. In the event of reactor accidents and nuclear weapon testing, the released radioactive materials are likely to be transported through various environmental pathways as well as by humans and animals, including bees. Due...
This study focuses on iodine-131 detected in milk samples from the Dairy Science Unit at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California following events at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in March of 2011. The samples were collected as part of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (DCPP) Radiological Environmental...
An experimental environmental uptake model was developed for the purpose
of estimating the final harvest concentration of contaminant following an acute
accidental release of radiocesium onto an eastern Oregon winter wheat crop. The
system was developed using the PATHWAY environmental uptake model as
presented by Whicker and Kirchner (1987) for...
Concentration ratios are used to determine the transfer of nuclides from soil to biota to fauna. Some nuclides have limited associated data though, this has not prevented predictions from being performed at sites without associated data. These ratios are site specific and are not fully applicable when applied to other...
The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has modeled twelve reference animals and plants (RAPs) with simple geometric shapes to be used when estimating radiation dose to non-human biota (NHB). In recent years, there has been interest in creating more realistic models in order to better understand the radiation interactions...