Answer to Question #210 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"
Category: Environmental and Background Radiation — General
The following question was answered by an expert in the appropriate field:
Q
What are some accepted practices for determining background radiation levels in an environmental dosimetry program?
A
Without knowing more about the objective/scope of the background radiation levels inquiry, I can only offer general guidance and suggestions:
- Research the available databases that probably have much of what is wanted already. Go to the Web and search various Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and/or Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sites that have annual survey reports.
- If gamma radiation background is the question, the best live measurements can be made with a pressurized ion chamber (PIC). The best one I know of is manufactured by Reuter Stokes. An individual probably can't afford one for a one-time study, but perhaps you could contact staff members at a state radiological health department to see if they have one and would be willing to participate in a joint data-gathering effort.
- Ask the local state radiological authorities for whatever data they already may have. Also, see the following Web sites:
- Purchase some TLDs from any number of NVLAP-certified TLD vendors to collect many samples for reasonable cost. I recommend at least a quarter-long exposure to ensure decent signal accumulation, better statistics, and a smoothing of short-time variations in background radiation levels. Landauer, ICN, and ThermoRetec are 3 TLD vendors that come to mind. Their numbers can be found in the Health Physics Journal or Health Physics News advertisements.
- If background radon levels is the question, research the vast amount of data already available in the literature and on the Web. Be sure to look at Bernard Cohen's extensive studies.
- The accepted practice for data collection would be to define the data-collection objectives and go about collecting sufficient data to achieve those objectives . . . both from a technical measurement approach and a statistical data defensibility approach. Without knowing the full extent of the data-collection objectives, I can't speculate further. A reference for this might be "Data Quality Objectives Process for Superfund," EPA/540/G-93/071, Publication 9355.9-01, September 1993. Something similar is probably available on EPA's Web site and on EPA's Environmental Radiation Data Reports Web site.
Mark Miller
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