Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
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Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#2Pretty lacking on specifics. What was the actual radiation level measured? I would assume these were not buckets of pure uranium, but of uranium ore that is naturally all over the place in the West, and not terribly radioactive in its natural state.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#3If they had just let them sit there for 4 and a half billion years they would be half gone :-).
If you hike around the Grand Canyon you are going to be exposed to Uranium. There are a lot of mines in and around the place (see here: https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/grand-canyon-uranium). It really isn't something to worry about unless you want to live their and/or eat food that has been contaminated.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#4Pretty lacking on specifics. What was the actual radiation level measured? I would assume these were not buckets of pure uranium, but of uranium ore that is naturally all over the place in the West, and not terribly radioactive in its natural state.
True, it was a little vague. They mentioned the measured levels after the bucket was removed, but not before.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#5Depending on the radiation level the public may have benefited via radiation hormesis. With only the given data it's hard to know if this was a net health menace or boon.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#6Pretty lacking on specifics. What was the actual radiation level measured? I would assume these were not buckets of pure uranium, but of uranium ore that is naturally all over the place in the West, and not terribly radioactive in its natural state.
True, it was a little vague. They mentioned the measured levels after the bucket was removed, but not before.
There is one quote that leads the reader to believe that the radiation was pretty strong:
> at levels he calculated to be 1,400 times the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safe level for children.
Note that it doesn’t mention the timeframe that the children would have to be exposed to the buckets to get that number. It mentions 30 minutes earlier, but it’s unclear whether 30 minutes was used to get the “1400 times” figure.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, it was a little vague. They mentioned the measured levels after the bucket was removed, but not before.
There is one quote that leads the reader to believe that the radiation was pretty strong: > at levels he calculated to be 1,400 times the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safe level for children. Note that it doesn’t mention the timeframe that the children would have to be exposed to the buckets to get that number. It mentions 30 minutes earlier, but it’s unclear whether 30 minutes was used to get the “1400 times” fig…
Yeah, I've always found vague calculations of radiation exposure like this to be highly inaccurate, mostly because people can't into inverse square law and fuck up the units. I'll wait until the OSHA investigation to reveal more accurate information; my opinion is that it's the lifelong employees who hung around the area who should actually be worried, instead of some kid who went on a field trip there six years ago.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#8Years ago, I was working in a biochem lab, and helping a state senator's staff draft legislation. The state capitol building was classic granite and marble. So one day, I brought in a Geiger counter. Everyone freaked ;)
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#9Depending on the radiation level the public may have benefited via radiation hormesis. With only the given data it's hard to know if this was a net health menace or boon.
The radiation hormesis theory[1] isn't widely accepted and shouldn't be used as a policy mechanism until there is much more known about its legitimacy and limitations.
Re: Grand Canyon Museum Had Buckets of Uranium Sitting Around for 18 Years
#10Pretty lacking on specifics. What was the actual radiation level measured? I would assume these were not buckets of pure uranium, but of uranium ore that is naturally all over the place in the West, and not terribly radioactive in its natural state.
* 800 mR/hr if you physically touched the rocks
* 280-320 mR/hr if you physically touched the bucket(s)
* 13.9 mR/hr if you were within 5 ft
* 1.85 mR/hr inside the building more than 5 feet away. Also can be thought of as "0 mR/hr above background"
* 2.02 mR/hr outside, in the park, on a bright sunny day.
2.02 is "background". i.e. the levels everyone is getting from natural sources outside.
13.9 mR/hr is 139 microsievert (µSv) per hour
So, really its that being near the buckets was 139 µSv/hr. A child would get ~70 µSv in that half hour, in theory. If we believe Randall Munroe's (of xkcd fame) sourcing in https://xkcd.com/radiation/, then that means the kid got less than a round-trip flight from NY to LA sitting there for 30 minutes. "1400 times" sounds like one heck of a scare tactic. Not saying this was smart, but its overly alarmist.
Numbers are from a picture I found. Scroll down a section on "Takeaways from the report" where it summarizes the exposure. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2019/02/1...