Exploring
Tritium Dangers
Health and Ecosystem Risks ofInternally Incorporated Radionuclides

Arjun
Makhijani,
Ph.D.

“I find this book extremely important and timely, especially considering thepresent plans for the large-scale release of radioactive, tritium-contaminatedwater from the damaged Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Efforts
to trivialize the potential effects of tritium in the environment ignore organic-binding, the uptake, trophic transfer and bio-accumulation by marineorganisms, and effects on the cells within individuals who eat contaminatedseafood products, including on nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA, RNAand signaling proteins. Ignoring such effects threatens the health of ecosystems already affected by a variety of anthropogenic stressors and all who
depend on them.”
Dr. Robert RichmondResearch Professor and Director,
Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii at Manoa“Rigorously independent and critical analyses in the field of ionising radiation and health, that draw upon and update evidence-based conclusions, likethis one, are vital. More tritium is emitted by nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons production than any other radioactive pollutant.
For decades, it has been claimed that tritium is a minor hazard, dispersing widely in water, that its beta radiation is not penetrating and relatively
weak. With harder to assess exposures and risks, such internal emitters haveoften not been adequately addressed by radiation protection standards. Similarly, tritium's different forms, distributed throughout organisms and affecting diverse cellular components, have been sidelined. This is particularly
important to redress given our collective greatest responsibility is to protect
the most vulnerable - pregnant women and young children, and the growing
evidence that there is no threshold for risk for most if not all the long-term
effects of radiation exposure.”
Tilman Ruff, MB, BS (Hons.)
Co-President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War“This book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the impact of tritiumon the environment. Written in an easy-to-read style, it challenges conventional wisdom and provides a comprehensive overview of the large varietyof effects of tritium beyond the commonly understood link to cancer. Highlyrecommended for anyone looking to understand the need for higher standards in radiation protection.”
Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress
Scientist-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor,
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies,
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

Exploring Tritium Dangers
Health and Ecosystem Risks ofInternally Incorporated Radionuclides

Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.

Title: Exploring Tritium Dangers: Health and Ecosystem Risks of Internally Incorporated Radionuclides
ISBN: 978-1-62429-447-1
Cover image: “The cells shown here are fibroblasts, one of the most common cells in mammalianconnective tissue. These particular cells were taken from a mouse. DNA within the nucleus(blue), mitochondria (green), and cellular skeleton (red) are clearly visible. This image was featured in an exhibit called Life: Magnified from June 3, 2014, to January 21, 2015, at Washington
Dulles International Airport's Gateway Gallery.”
Cover image credit: D. Burnette, J. Lippincott-Schwartz/NICHD downloaded from Wikimedia
Commons at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Cells_with_nuclei_in_blue%2C_mitochondria_in_green%2C_and_the_actin_cytoskeleton_in_red_%2819124186316%29.jpg
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The electronic file is made available for downloading at no charge for non-commercial use only.
Any commercial use, including sales in paper, electronic, audio, or any other format or via the Internet, is strictly prohibited. Unauthorized sales in any format are a violation of copyright law.
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Dedicated to

Kay Drey
whose “favorite” radioisotope is tritium
and who plays “happy birthday” on the violin

CONTENTS
Preface ..................................................................................................................ix
1. Why Tritium? ................................................................................................. 3
2. Physical And Radiological Features Of Tritium......................................... 8a.

Physical Aspects ................................................................................. 8b.

Tritium Sources Other Than Reactors..........................................10c.

Tritium Production In Reactors ....................................................13d.

Secondary Sources Of Tritium.......................................................17

3. Tritium Discharges To The Environment And Concentrations Of
Tritium In The Environment...........................................................................19a.

Nuclear Power Plant Emissions To The Atmosphere
And Tritium Contamination Of Rainfall And Snow ..................21b.

Discharges To Water Bodies And Concentrations In
Surface And Drinking Water .........................................................30c.

Tritium In The Soil.......................................................................... 33d.

Monitoring Of Tritium Releases ...................................................33

4. Tritium Pathways And Residence Times In The Body ..........................36a.

Pathways ........................................................................................... 36b.

Residence times ................................................................................ 38c.

Organically Bound Tritium (OBT) ...............................................40

5. Harm From Internal Radiation ..................................................................44a.

The Model Of The Body As A Bag Of Water ..............................46b.

Relative Biological Effectiveness ....................................................50c.

Impact On Mitochondria ...............................................................53d.

Considering Tritium Dangers And Risks .....................................58

6. Teratogenic Impacts On The Embryo And Fetus ...................................61a.

Transfer Of Radionuclides To The Embryo And Fetus .............61b.

The Establishment View Of Teratogenic Impacts ......................63c.

Reconsidering Certain Aspects Of The Establishment View.....66d.

Multigenerational Impacts .............................................................69

7. Tritium Standards In Water ....................................................................... 74
8. Concluding Reflections ............................................................................... 77
References........................................................................................................... 81
Appendix A: Radioactive Rain ....................................................................... 94
Appendix B ........................................................................................................ 97

Preface
The roots of this work are complex, but the most important by far iswhen Kay Drey and I found that we had independently arrived at thesame conclusion: that tritium was a radionuclide that should be taken
very seriously. However, in practice it had been treated rather cavalierly by the radiation establishment as a radiation danger eventhough it is radioactive water, makes food radioactive, crosses the placenta, and is a ubiquitous pollutant from both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Kay has most generously funded this work.
Some of its technical roots go back to the early 1980s when Bob
Alvarez introduced me to Anthony Guarisco. A veteran of the 1946
Bikini atom bomb tests, he had a pile of documents from the archiveof Stafford Warren, who was Dean of the medical school of the University of California at Los Angeles when he died in 1982. Dr. Warren
had been the chief of radiological safety at Bikini in 1946 during Operation Crossroads, the first nuclear bomb tests after World War II.
Atomic veterans had been told by the Defense Nuclear Agency that
their internal doses were negligibly small. The documents indicatedotherwise. Radiological conditions were poor. Safety personnel complained about the “hairy-chested” approach of some naval officers
who had a “disdain for the unseen hazard” of radiation.1 The reportthat a colleague and I did was presented to the House Committee on
Veterans Affairs by none other than Karl Morgan, one of the foundersof the discipline of “health physics.” It was my first major indicationthat internal doses were not being considered with the rigor they deserved. By “internal dose” is meant the energy from ionizing radiation
1

As quoted in Makhijani and Albright 1983, p. 2.

ix

deposited in the body or some part of it by radionuclides once they
are inside the body.
A major joint project of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) in the 1990s concluded that every nuclear
weapon state had first of all harmed its own people without informed
consent. More evidence mounted of significant differences between
external and internal radiation that were clearly not being taken into
account given that the main focus was cancer risk for adults – a major
problem, but not the only one.
In 1999, my then-colleague at IEER, Lisa Ledwidge, and I initiated a letter to the National Academies signed by over 100 scientists,
academics, activists, physicians, and community leaders on the topic.
We specifically urged the committee studying the health risks of “lowlevel” radiation to consider, among other things, the problem of radionuclides that can cross the placenta. While the committee updated
cancer risks to men, women, and children, it did not seriously consider the question of radionuclides that cross the placenta. The issueof radioactive water and radioactive food that affects the embryo andfetus remains woefully and shockingly sidelined, as I wrote to yet another committee of the National Academies on the same topic, in January 2022.2
In the mid-2000’s I learned that Argonne National Laboratory’s
RESRAD program to assess the risks of residual radioactivity contamination after remediation of polluted sites only calculated doses for“Reference Man” – officially defined as a 20 to 30-year-old “Caucasian male.”3 That made me determined to look into the problem of
how risks were being calculated more deeply. That was also the point
at which I realized that the “physics” in “health physics” was that the23

Makhijani 2022
Makhijani 2009x

body was simplified and represented as a bag of water – since we aremostly water. Models are simplified representations. Still, the body ishighly organized system; that does not enter centrally into the model,
even when modified by a concept called “relative biological effectiveness.” I also realized that the approach to assessing chemical risks wasquite different so that it was not possible in any systematic way toassess the combined risks of radiation and chemicals, though tens of
thousands of toxic chemicals are in common use. In 2005, “the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200
industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10
babies….”4
The inability to systematically consider the combined effects ofchemicals, not to speak of chemicals and radiation together, meansthat environmental protection is oriented not to protecting health but
to controlling pollution. Limiting pollution from any particular toxicant is important, even critical. It is central to the regulation of industries. Yet, we experience pollutants in the environment together fromthe moment of conception – and indeed before, when ova and sperm
are formed but still exist separately. I sometimes ask people (generally
someone young in an audience) how old they are. And they tell theirage, calculated, of course, from their date of birth. Yet, the ova fromwhich we are made were created when our mothers were in theirmothers’ wombs, so a part of us is as old as our mothers.
These are vast problems and it has taken some time to sort out
what a small non-profit like IEER, dedicated to the goal of bringing“scientific excellence to public policy issues in order to promote thedemocratization of science and a safer, healthier environment”

4

EWG 2005.

xi

should do. I decided we should focus on tritium. A ubiquitous pollutant, it exemplifies the types of risks that many other critical pollutants inflict on people and other living beings. For instance, much of
the harm tritium does comes from the excess reactive oxygen species
it creates in cells by ionizing water. This is also the source of much of
the risk from heavy metals. Thus, understanding tritium also points
the way to better understanding not only of other pollutants, but of
how one might combine the risk estimates to better set environmental
standards and protect public health. It also points to the complexityof the problem, how much we still need to learn, and the need forprotective standards, given these gaps.
Parts of this monograph are taken from or adapted from mymemorandum on low-level radiation research sent in January 2022
to a committee of the National Research Council.5
In order to illustrate that routine tritium pollution does actuallyrain down on people and ecosystems, IEER commissioned Matthias
Rau, an atmospheric modeling expert in Germany, to model one yearof routine tritiated water vapor emissions from the Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois. Braidwood achieved some notoriety after
the discovery of tritium leaks and the fact that those leaks had migrated offsite and contaminated private water wells. His entire modeling results are in Appendix B.
I would like to thank Annie Makhijani, who is a Project Scientist
at IEER; she did much of the research for this book, digging up documents in English and French and then proofreading this manuscript.
This book is dedicated to Kay Drey on the cover – an unusual
way to acknowledge someone. But it is for a very good reason. Shelong ago concluded that tritium was a critical radionuclide to evaluate

5

Makhijani 2022

xii

for its health and ecological impacts; like the dangers at Bikini Atollin 1946, it also has often been treated with disdain. This book showsthat she has been prescient. Kay was also very generous and funded
this entire research project. I am grateful to her on my own behalf andon behalf of everyone who might benefit from the analysis and exploration in this book. It is called “Exploring Tritium Dangers” because
it has literally been a voyage of exploration into a variety of areas ofradiation risk, especially some that have been relatively neglected.
First of all, there is tritium itself. Secondly, the risks during pregnancy and especially during the first trimester have, shockingly, received far less attention than they deserve, given the ubiquity of tritium as an anthropogenic pollutant from both nuclear weapons andnuclear power. And then there is its impact on the organelles in thecytoplasm of cells, once it gets into the body as radioactive water orbound up in the molecules of the food we eat. Specifically, tritium
emits beta particles that create excess reactive oxygen species in cells,
damaging mitochondria and mitochondrial DNA, which form thecore of the energy system of all multi-cellular animals, plants, andfungi and also many single-celled ones that have nuclei. Oxidation
and reduction – and hence the presence of reactive oxygen species –are a normal part of metabolism. For one thing, it is the way food isprocessed into energy. Reactive oxygen species are normally present.
Here we are concerned with excess reactive oxygen species. By way of
analogy, we need oxygen for our normal metabolic processes. But
ozone pollution, on top of the normal oxidative processes, creates thedamage. That’s why we call it “pollution.”
The word “exploring” in the title is also used because there is still
so much to be learned beyond cancer and the conventional dose andrisk assessments done in that context; they are of course critical andimportant in their own right. But this book is focused on other,xiii

mainly non-cancer risks – the ones that need considerable exploration both from a scientific point of view and for protecting health andthe environment.
Arjun Makhijani
July 2022xivExploring Tritium Dangers
Health and Ecosystem Risks Of
Internally Incorporated Radionuclides

1
Why Tritium?
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, which is the most abundantelement by far in the universe – being nearly three-fourths of its observable mass. It is the simplest element, consisting of a single proton in the
nucleus and an electron in orbit around it. Almost all the hydrogen on
Earth (99.985 percent) is of this form. Essentially all the rest, 0.015 percent) is deuterium, which has, in addition to the proton, a neutron in the
nucleus. Like ordinary hydrogen, it is not radioactive. Tritium is theother isotope of hydrogen, present naturally only in very minuteamounts, being created by the interaction of cosmic rays with the atmosphere. The natural total inventory of tritium is less than 10 kilograms;6
for comparison, the mass of the atmosphere is more than five million
trillion kilograms.
So why worry about tritium? First, it is highly radioactive. The radiation it emits – a beta particle – poses dangers, like other radioactive materials, to people and other living beings. Tritium is ordinarily a gas, like hydrogen, or it exists in water, have replaced one or both atoms or H2O, denoted
respectively as HTO or T2O. In either of these forms it is called “tritiatedwater,” which is of course, radioactive. Tritium is unique in this – it makes
water, the stuff of life, most of the mass of living beings, radioactive. And
hence it makes food radioactive. On close examination then, there are a hostof reasons to pay careful attention to the dangers of tritium:

6

ANL 2007, pdf p. 56.

3

1.

Tritium is the most common radioactive pollutant routinely discharged in the largest quantities as measured byradioactivity. For instance, the total radioactivity of tritium in the discharges of polluted water from the Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois in 2019 was morethan 75,000 times the discharges of all other fission and activation products. The total radioactivity of routine gaseous releases of tritium in the form of water vapor from theBraidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois in 2019 weremore than one hundred times that of all other gaseous fission products and activated radioactive gases.7

2.

Like plutonium, man-made quantities of tritium far exceed those in nature.

3.

Tritium and plutonium are both used in nuclear weapons.

4.

Like plutonium, uranium, and other alpha emitters,
tritium is far more dangerous inside the body than outside the body.

5.

Tritiated water is radioactive, but it is chemically indistinguishable from ordinary (non-radioactive) water,which is the majority of the mass of animals and plants.
Our cells are mostly water; as a result tritiated water
once ingested pervades in our bodies – and does thesame for plants and animals.

6.

Tritium has a long enough half-life, 12.3 years, that it
persists in the environment for decades (in diminishingamounts as it decays); yet its half-life is short enoughthat it is extremely radioactive.8 For a given mass, it is,

7
Braidwood 2019, Table 2A, pdf p. 26 and Table 1A, pdf p. 20. Braidwood is used as a specific example
throughout this monograph.
8
The radioactivity per unit mass of a radioactive material is inversely proportional to its half-life – theshorter the half-life, the more radioactive particles a given mass of the material will emit. Materials withvery short half-lives, like iodine-131 (8 days), are intensely radioactive and dangerous, but they do not4for instance, about 150,000 times as radioactive, interms of disintegrations per unit time, as plutonium239. One teaspoon of tritiated water (as HTO) would
contaminate about 100 billion gallons of water to the
U.S. drinking water limit; that is enough to supply about
1 million homes with water for a year.
7.

Tritium crosses the placenta with facility. The concentration ratio of tritium in the fetus to that in the motheris more than one, whether the mother has had an intake
before she became pregnant or after that.9

8.

The core of the energy system of all multicellular beings
consists of mitochondria, which are in the cytoplasm.
Tritium ionizes water in the cytoplasm, setting in motion processes that can profoundly disrupt mitochondrial DNA and hence the system that converts food tousable a form, ATP, that the body uses for all functions.

9.

Tritium can, by affecting ova during the time of their formation in utero and during the time of the maturation
during pregnancy, impact future generations. It can also
do so via being incorporated in sperm and spermatocytes.

10. Tritium can exemplify the ways in which other internal
emitters can have non-cancer impacts, including during
the early period of pregnancy, when internal radiation
can result in miscarriages and malformations. At least

persist for long. Iodine-131 essentially decays completely to xenon-131 in about three months. Tritiumwith a half-life of 12.3 years is not as radioactive, but it is still highly radioactive and takes about 130
years to decay by the same amount as iodine-131 does in three months. Specific activity is also inversely proportional to atomic weight. Tritium being the lightest radioactive material is also more radioactive per unit mass on that account.
9
NRPB 2001, Table 1, p. 13. This is also true of a few other radionuclides, notably carbon-14. By contrast, the fetal to maternal ratio for plutonium is less than one except for intakes in the last trimester.

5

some of these impacts can occur even at low doses, notably some types of damage to the central nervous system formation.10
11. The focus on adults, especially Reference Man, has resulted in an under-appreciation of the dangers and risks oftritium precisely because tritiated water is chemically thesame as ordinary water. The official advice upon exposure
has been to reduce the impact by drinking beer or otherbeverages: “Although the average biological half-life [oftritiated water] is 10 days, it can be decreased by simply
increasing fluid intake, especially diuretic liquids such as
coffee, tea, beer, and wine.”11 Not wrong advice, of course;
yet, it is noteworthy that there are no cautions for women
who are pregnant. In fact the words “pregnancy,” “embryo,” and “fetus,” do not appear in this official handbook
for “safe handling” of tritium.
12. Routine tritium pollution affects the drinking water oflarge numbers of people though it is generally below the
U.S. drinking water standard limit. But that limit was
set without detailed assessment of what it would take toprotect the embryo or the fetus especially in the first trimester.
13. Nuclear power plants and many nuclear weapons relative activities are mostly located in relatively rural areas,
where people have private wells. Drinking water regulations that limit concentrations of pollutants only apply to public water systems. This is reasonable from acertain viewpoint. Regulating private wells would im-

10
11

ICRP 49, 1986, pp. 20-21 and p. 31
DOE 1994, p. 19.

6

pose significant costs on rural families in terms of testing for and reporting on a host of chemical, biological,
and radioactive pollutants. Yet, it has also created ahuge loophole. There is no requirement for industries
like power plants or chemical plants to offer funds formonitoring or even alert the public to the potential ofcontamination, unless some accident or leak brings it to
the fore, when it is already too late for many.
14. Tritium is illustrative of a whole host of situations interms of scientific assessment gaps, health and ecosystem impacts, social impacts, and regulatory issues.
Thus, studying tritium allows one to draw lessons forother pollutants, including several other radionuclides,
in all these aspects and thus also for the protection ofhealth and the environment.
This last reason has significant implications for the protection of healthand the environment. Understanding tritium can potentially enable anunderstanding of synergistic interactions with non-radioactive pollutants. While the goal of actually addressing synergistic effects is too large
for this monograph, the exploration in it points to directions for one way
to systematically approach this difficult topic: by examining those pollutants that act by creating excess reactive oxygen species inside living cells.

7

2
Physical and Radiological Features of Tritium

a. Physical aspects
Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen with one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus, resulting in a total atomic mass of three. Figure II-1
shows the three isotopes of hydrogen.

Figure II-1: Schematic of the three isotopes of hydrogen. Ordinary hydrogen H-1 or simply
H, deuterium, H-2 or D, and tritium H-3 or T. Only tritium is radioactive Source: Bruce
Blass, Wikimedia Commons, at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=tritium+atom&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

As a radioactive gas, tritium is essentially like hydrogen but with about threetimes the atomic mass. It is usually denoted by the symbol T. When its likeness to hydrogen is to be stressed, it is designated by the symbol H-3 – “H”
for hydrogen, and “3” for its atomic mass (in round numbers)12, also written

12

The total number or protons and neutrons in the nucleus is called the “mass number” and is very
close to the actual mass of a particular isotope.

8

as 3H. A nucleus of ordinary hydrogen consists of just one proton; it has noneutrons. While the mass number of T is 3 compared to 1 for hydrogen,tritium is still very light. As HT its molecular mass is just 4, compared to 32
for oxygen as O2, for instance. As a small, light molecule tritium gas (HT or
T2), like H2, diffuses readily through all but the most highly engineered containment vessels and mixes freely with the other forms of hydrogen.
Tritium is radioactive – that is it has an unstable nucleus that decays byemitting a beta particle. The emission of a beta particle transforms tritium into
a new (and stable) element helium-3, which is a non-radioactive gas:H-3  He-3 + beta particle (an electron) + antineutrino
The time it takes for half of a given amount of tritium to decay into helium3 is about 12.3 years. At the end of that period, half of the original tritium
is still left. The other half has become helium-3 gas, which is inert. The harmthat tritium does comes from the beta particles if and when they interact
with living matter.
On average, these beta particles have an energy of 5,700 electronvolts (5.7 kilo-electron-volts, keV for short). A typical chemical bond in a13

biological molecule is on the order of a few electron-volts. This means thata single beta particle can, on average, create on the order of a thousand ionizations. Ionization of water is especially important in the context of tritium
entering the cytoplasm of cells. The ionization energy of water is about 12.6
electron-volts.14 At that rate, the average beta particle energy of 5.7 keV
would produce about 450 ionizations of water. The maximum beta particle
energy, 18.6 keV, would result in over 1,470 ionizations of water molecules. Of
course, the ionizations from a decay would not be confined to a single type ofmolecule (though water is the most abundant molecule the cytoplasm).

13
14

ANL 2007, pdf p. 56.
NIST 2001

9

The radioactivity of a substance is usually measured in the number ofdisintegrations per second or “becquerels” – so named after the scientist
Henri Becquerel (abbreviated as “Bq”). The radioactivity per unit mass iscalled “specific activity.” One gram of tritium undergoes about 360 trillion
disintegrations per second, in other words its specific activity is 360 trillion
Bq per gram or 360 TBq/g). Specific activity is also measured in a unit that
honors Marie Curie – one curie corresponds to 37 billion disintegrations(Bq) per second, corresponding to the radioactivity of a gram of radium226, which she discovered. In this measure, tritium has a specific activity of
about 9,800 curies per gram. A curie is a very large amount of radioactivity.
The amount of contamination of something is usually measured in trillionths of a curie, known as a “picocurie,” billionths of a curie, known as a“nanocurie,” or a millionth of a curie, called a microcurie.
Since it is chemically identical to hydrogen it combines with oxygen andforms water, known as “tritiated water,” by replacing one or both atoms of
non-radioactive hydrogen in water. Tritiated water is generally designated as
HTO or T2O, depending on whether it has one or two atoms of tritium in thewater molecule respectively. Since tritium is radioactive, so is tritiated water.
Since tritium is essentially chemically identical to hydrogen, tritiated water
behaves and moves like water, interacting with living beings as ordinary nonradioactive water would but posing risks of harm to health due to its radioactivity. There are slight differences between the behavior of tritiated waterand ordinary water since tritiated water has a higher molecular mass. But tritiated water moves in the environment like non-radioactive water.

b. Tritium sources other than reactors
Tritium is produced naturally and artificially.
In nature, cosmic rays interact with the atmosphere to produce neutrons. Neutrons bombarding a nitrogen nucleus result in an ordinary carbon nucleus (C-12) and tritium (H-3):

10

N-14 + neutron  C-12 + H-3
Tritium is made naturally at a relatively steady rate; it also decaying at a
steady rate. As a result there is an equilibrium amount of natural tritium –the balance between production and decay – in the environment. The
French government’s radiation research and safety institute, IRSN, estimates the annual production between 0.15 and 0.2 kilograms, which implies an equilibrium amount of about 3 kilograms.15
Most tritium in the environment is man-made, however. Atmosphericnuclear explosions (including the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) from1945 to 1963, created an estimated 780 kilograms of tritium, of which 650 kilograms was in the Northern hemisphere and the rest in the Southern hemisphere.16 The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited all nuclear tests
except those underground, was ratified by the United States, the Soviet Union,
and Britain. However, tritium continued to be created by the atmospheric testsof France, which ended in 1974, and of China, which ended in 1980; French
testing in Polynesia would have created a proportionately greater impact in theSouthern hemisphere per unit of explosive power.17 About 20 kilograms – stillmuch greater than the natural inventory remained in the environment in
2020, with 90 percent in the oceans, one percent in the atmosphere and therest in water on the various continents.18 Of course, the continuation of nuclear testing underground has left a legacy of subterranean radioactive pollution whose impacts are yet ill-understood. The Comprehensive Test Ban

15

IRSN 2010, p. 4. Eisenbud 1987 gives an inventory of 2.65 kilograms (as cited in Zerriffi 1996, p. 3);
this is close to the IRSN number, which is used in this book. Argonne National Laboratory gives alarger number for the equilibrium amount – 7.3 kilograms without citing a source or an estimated annual production by natural sources. ANL 2007, pdf p. 56.
16
IRSN 2010, p. 4
17
IRSN 2010, p. 4. Underground testing by the signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
continued till 1996, after which India, Pakistan, and North Korea conducted underground tests.
18
IRSN 2010, p. 4 gives an inventory of 40 kilograms for the year 2007.

11

Treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions, has not yet been ratified by enoughcountries, including some nuclear weapon states, to come into force.19
According to an Argonne National Laboratory compendium of fact
sheets, published in 2005, the United States had made a cumulative 225 kilograms of tritium – about 70 times the entire natural inventory, for its weapons
program; 75 kilograms remained, though the date is not provided.20
The inventory cited by Argonne appears to be from public sources dating back to around 1990.21 U.S. tritium production was primarily for its
nuclear weapons program. Tritium for weapons was also incidentally produced in reactors in the nuclear weapons complex, but these were shut by
the early 1990s, though much of the tritium remains in the environment.
Military tritium production has been done at the civilian Watts Bar 1 reactor in Tennessee since 2003. Based on the annual decay rate of a 225 kilogram tritium inventory, the replacement amount would be almost 13 kilograms a year; based on a 75 kilogram end-of-the-Cold-War inventory, theannual replacement amount would be about four kilograms. Other nuclear
weapon states have also made tritium for weapons, of course. A global inventory on the order of 200 kilograms is a workable hypothesis of the purpose of this book.
The main tritium inventories other than from nuclear power plants
and nuclear weapons related reactors can be summarized as follows:•

The equilibrium natural inventory is about 3 kilograms,that is roughly 30 million curies.

19

In 2022, IEER prepared a series of short papers on the health and environmental impacts of nuclear
weapons testing for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Some were authored by
Arjun Makhijani; others were authored by Dr. Tilman Ruff, Co-President of International Physicians
for the Prevention of Nuclear War. They can be downloaded at https://ieer.org/resource/disarmamentpeace/articles-on-the-health-and-environmental-impacts-of-nuclear-weapons-testing-at-the-major-test-sites/20
ANL 2007, pdf p. 56.
21
Zerriffi 1996, p. 3 cites the same numbers with references to sources dating to 1987, 1992, and 1993. m

12•The tritium remaining from atmospheric testing isabout 20 kilograms – or roughly 200 million curies, 90
percent of which is in the oceans, one percent is in theatmosphere, and the rest is in continental water bodies(surface and groundwater). There is also a significant
inventory from underground testing which has notbeen estimated here.

•

It is difficult to estimate the inventory of tritium in the nuclear weapons establishments of various states, but basedon publicly available information from the 1990s, the inventory is likely to be much larger than the natural andweapons testing amounts combined. The exact amount is
not material to the purposes of this paper, except thatsome of this tritium may leak into the environment.

c. Tritium production in reactors
Tritium can be made in nuclear reactors or in accelerators. In a reactor, thebasic technique of tritium production usually involves putting lithium-6 ina target rod and bombarding it with neutrons. In the United States, tritium
for military purposes has been produced in a civilian reactor belonging to
the Tennessee Valley Authority since 2003. Accelerator production of tritium, a new use of accelerator technology unproved on a large scale, would
bombard helium-3 with neutrons. The two basic nuclear processes areshown in Figure II-2.

13

Figure II–2: Tritium Production Processes22

Source: Zerriffi 1996

Nuclear reactors, whether for weapons or power (or both), also produce
tritium both as a fission product and as an activation product in the coolant
water. Heavy water cooled and moderated reactors have created muchlarger amounts of tritium compared to reactors that use “light” (or ordinary) water for cooling and moderation. The most prominent example of aheavy water power reactor design is the CANDU reactor, used in Canada,
India and a few other countries. The abundant production of tritium in reactors that use heavy water is because the nucleus of deuterium needs tocapture just one neutron to be transmuted to tritium. The CANDU-produced tritium is separated for commercial purposes.

22

Reprinted from DOE Factsheet, “What is Tritium?”

14

The quantity of tritium produced in light water reactors is not uniform; it depends on the type and size of the reactor. In pressurized water
reactors (PWRs) most of the tritium that is released to the environment is
produced by the interaction of neutrons with boron and lithium. The boron
is added to the primary cooling water to control the rate of the nuclear reactions in the fuel and the lithium is added to control corrosion. This is not
an issue with boiling water reactors (BWRs), in which neither boron norlithium is added to the primary water. Primary cooling water is the waterthat removes the heat generated by fission reactions in the fuel in the reactor. In BWRs the water boils in the reactor vessel itself. In PWRs, the waterin the reactor vessel (“primary water”) does not boil. The high pressure primary water is used to boil water by transferring heat to a water in a secondary loop in a device called a steam generator. The condensing loop, where
the steam is condensed back to water, is the tertiary cooling loop. Routine
tritium discharges and emissions from the reactor are mainly associatedwith the primary water of the reactor.23
Tritium is also produced in the fuel rods of both PWRs and BWRs
from ternary fission (fission in which there are three fission fragments).
Only a small fraction of this leaks into the primary cooling water along withsome other fission products through very small cracks and holes that form
in a small number of the fuel rods. The PWR’s cooling water is constantly
taken out for chemical treatment, for volume control, and to reduce the radioactivity. Then most of it is sent back into the reactor vessel. The chemicaltreatment is mainly to reduce the amount of boron as the reactivity of thefuel decreases with time. Some of the fission products that leak into the primary water of the reactor are removed by passing the water through ion exchange resin filters; however, this does not affect tritiated water which, being
chemically identical to water, just passes right through the filters. The part ofthe cooling water which is not returned to the reactor vessel is put in holding
23

Heavy water reactors produce the most tritium per unit of water – about 1.9 grams per year in a 900
megawatt-electrical (MWe) – or almost 19,000 curies per year. IRSN 2010, p. 4

15

tanks. It is periodically released after further treatment and dilution to bring
the tritium concentration to a level deemed “safe” by the nuclear industry and
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Fresh water is mixed in with thebalance of the primary water to make up for the water that is withdrawn into
the holding tanks.
Overall, the annual production of tritium in a PWR is variable. In
French PWRs, the 900 megawatt model produces 0.03 grams (or about 300
curies per year); the 1,300 MW model produces 900 curies per year.24 However, for U.S. reactors, Argonne National Laboratory estimates the annual
production in a typical reactor to be 2 grams25 or about 20,000 curies.
There is also tritium in the spent fuel pools of reactors where the usedfuel is stored. Spent fuel is transferred from the reactor to the storage poolthrough a canal so the water in the reactor and in the pool mix during that
period. PWR spent fuel pools also contain boron.26 Some neutrons are present due to the spontaneous fission of plutonium-240 and uranium-238 in
the spent fuel. As a result, tritium is also produced in the spent fuel pools
themselves. Routine emissions of tritium from reactors in recent times aremainly from spent fuel pools.27
The amount of tritium created in the pool evidently depends on the total
amount of spent fuel stored in it. It also depends on the “burnup” of the fuel– that is the amount of energy that has been extracted from it. The higher theburn-up the more the concentration of plutonium-240 in the spent fuel. Pu240, which undergoes spontaneous fission, is a source of neutrons, and therefore of tritium in PWR spent fuel pools that have boron added to them for
criticality control – that is to prevent accidental chain reactions. Tritium concentration in spent fuel pool water varies over the time of a refueling cycle
and also depends on how much spent fuel is in the pool. The concentration

24

IRSN 2010, p. 4
ANL 2007, pdf p. 56
26
BWR spent fuel pools are not borated. NRC 2006, p. 5
27
Sejkora 2006 and Sandike 201425

16

in PWR spent fuel pool varies; typical values are between 20 microcuries perliter and 50 microcuries per liter.28 Some pool water evaporates (since thespent fuel is hot, so is the pool water) and is emitted into the atmosphere; likeother moisture in the air, it comes down as rain, to be evaporated again orwind up in groundwater. A comparison of pool water concentration to the
U.S. drinking water standard provides some indication of what is being emitted. 20 microcuries per liter is one thousand times the U.S. drinking water
standard.
Figure II-3 shows airborne emissions of tritium (generally in the formof tritiated water vapor) in the atmosphere from both reactors and spent
fuel pools for pressurized water reactors. However, emissions can and do
exceed these amounts (see below).

Airborne tritium emissions from pressurizedwater reactors, per reactor
Curies per year

100
80
60
40
20
0

1999

2000

2001

75 percentile value

2002

2003

Median value

2004

2005

2006

25 percentile value

Figure II-3: Air borne tritium emissions from U.S. pressurized water reactors
Source: Jones circa 2007

d. Secondary sources of tritium
Tritium also is found in a number of other places where it is not made. For
instance, tritium is used in exit signs for illumination of the signs without a28

Sandike 2014, slide 10.

17source of electricity. It is used in illuminated watch dials. When these are
discarded into landfills, for instance, the landfills become contaminated.
And tritium can then enter the environment from these landfills, including
into water bodies.
Tritium is present at nuclear weapons production sites. Radioactive
waste landfills at these sites contain large amounts of tritium, which routinely leaks into groundwater as well as surface water. Evaporation fromcontaminated surface water bodies, such as those at Savannah River Site, inSouth Carolina causes tritiated water to enter the atmosphere and rainout
in the environs. Similarly these contaminated ponds and lakes are also
sources of groundwater contamination.29

29

Makhijani and Boyd 2004. Chapter III provides details about offsite tritium contamination (of theSavannah River and of groundwater) due to weapons production and dumping of contaminated materials on site.

18

3
Tritium Discharges to the Environment andConcentrations of Tritium in the Environment
Prior to nuclear bomb testing, the tritium content of rainfall was about
16 picocuries per liter. Rainfall became contaminated with tritium after
the start of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. The peak concentration, in 1963, was about 1,000 times greater – about 16,000 picocuries perliter.30 The decay of tritium and the dilution of rainfall in surface waters,
including the oceans has caused the concentration to fall back over the
decades. The tritium content of rainfall due to natural and nuclear weapons testing factors is now back to approximately pre-testing days.
Tritium in surface waters due to natural and testing causes is on theorder of 30 picocuries per liter (~1 Bq/liter) but can be higher up to ~110
picocuries per liter (~4 Bq/L). The concentrations vary by location but
evaporation and mixing with ordinary, non-radioactive water tend to reduce the concentration over time (along with decay) unless there is a sourceof tritium.
Figure III-1 shows the variation in tritium concentrations in precipitation (rain and snow) from in 1955 to 1990. The box at left shows the concentration before the nuclear weapons era began (0.1 to 0.6 Bq/L or 3 to 16
picocuries per liter); the right box shows the concentration in 2008: 1 to 4
Bq/L (27 to 108 picocuries per liter). These concentrations would have declined by about half by 2020 due to the decay of tritium (half-life 12.3 years).

30

IAEA on tritium at http://www-naweb.iaea.org/napc/ih/documents/global_cycle/vol%20II/cht_ii_05.pdf pages 63-64

19

Figure III-1: Tritium concentrations in precipitation due to natural and bomb testing sources.
Source: IRSN 2010, p. 5, with permission. Copyright IRSN.

Figure III-1 shows tritium concentration in precipitation to be much less than
100 pCi/L from at least 1985, onward if not before. In contrast, nuclear powerindustry sources tend to cite the background as 100 to 300 pCi/liter. For instance, Ken Sejkora of Entergy used this range in his 2006 presentation.31 Attributing a higher concentration to “background” would lead one to attributetritium contamination in many areas to “background” even if it is largely oreven mainly due to nuclear power plant emissions and discharges. Further, if
one uses the actual typical background tritium concentration in precipitation,
which is 20 to 30 pCi/L, the minimum detectable limit should be at about thislevel or below if the aim is to detect human impact on the environment. Specifically, that would enable reasonably accurate inferences about the contributions of nuclear power plant sources – i.e., reactors and spent fuel pools, lowlevel radioactive waste disposal facilities, etc. Typical detection limits used by
nuclear power plant operators are much higher.

31

Sejkora 2006, Slide 6.

20Groundwater concentrations vary more, and may show the influenceof bomb testing to a greater degree; they range from about that in surface
water (20 to 30 picocuries per liter and sometimes even lower) to roughly
100 picocuries per liter. These are values for the mid-latitudes; concentrations are lower in the tropics.32

a. Nuclear power plant emissions to the atmosphere and tritiumcontamination of rainfall and snow
The specific activity of tritium is very high – almost 10,000 curies per gram.
This means that a single gam on tritium undergoes a very large number ofdisintegrations – almost 400 trillion – every second. As a result, a very small
mass of tritium can contaminate a large amount of water. For instance, onegram (the weight of about one-fifth of a teaspoon of water) of tritium in tritiated water (as HTO) will contaminate almost 500 billion liters of water up
to the U.S. drinking water limit of 20,000 picocuries per liter. The combination of two properties – tritiated water is chemically like ordinary water andtritium is highly radioactive – makes tritium a very pernicious pollutant
that is difficult to contain and, once in the water, very difficult to remediate;in trace amounts, remediation is essentially impossible.
In addition to tritiated water, tritium can also be integrated into organic molecules and hence into body tissues. The tritium that replaces hydrogen in a carbon-hydrogen bond is difficult to remove and is, therefore,
referred to as non-exchangeable organically bound tritium (OBT). Animalstudies indicate that one to five percent of the tritiated water in mammals
is incorporated into OBT in this way.
If tritiated water is used for irrigation, it can become organically boundin the plant’s molecules. Direct intake of organically bound tritium throughfood makes it more likely that it will be incorporated as organically boundtritium in biomolecules in the human body compared to tritium ingested
32

Marešova et al. 201721

by drinking tritiated water. However, it is important to remember that theterm “organically bound tritium” is a catch-all for a heterogeneous groupof compounds that can behave very differently in metabolic processes.
Both tritiated water and organically bound tritium can cross the placenta and irradiate developing fetuses in utero, thereby raising the risk ofbirth defects, miscarriages, and other problems. The forms of tritium discussed in this chapter are either tritiated water or OBT, unless otherwise
specified.
The most common form of tritium in the environment is as tritiated water in which a single atom of ordinary hydrogen has been replaced by tritium(HTO). In this book, the term “tritium” in the context of releases, contamination, etc. refers to tritiated water (HTO), unless otherwise specified.
The main new source of routine tritium contamination of water after
the end of atmospheric nuclear bomb testing is emissions to the atmosphereand discharges to surface water from nuclear power reactors (including
spent fuel pools) and discharges from reprocessing plants.
Contamination of surface water bodies due to routine discharges from
nuclear power plants can run to hundreds or even thousands of picocuries perliter. Rainfall can be much more contaminated. Its tritium levels in rainfall can
range from close to background – that is a few tens of picocuries per liter totens of thousands or even millions of picocuries per liter.33 A 1985 study byPeterson and Baker estimated that about 780 curies of tritium per 1,000 megawatt electric (Mwe) from a PWR, operating at 82 percent capacity for the whole
year, are released to the environment, of which 85 percent are waterborne effluents (663 curies) and the rest are airborne effluents (107 curies). The liquid
effluents are discharged in batches in lakes, rivers, and oceans, often throughunderground pipes. Leaks can occur in such pipes and when they do, they contaminate the soil and groundwater. In boiling water reactors (BWRs) boron is33

Sejkora 200622

not added to the water and therefore tritium is not produced in boron-neutron
reactions in the primary water.
The tritium in BWRs is mainly produced as a result of ternary fission
in reactors. The Peterson and Baker study estimated that 120 curies per
1,000 Mwe are released per year to the environment, of which 75 percent is
in gaseous form and the rest in liquid form. Leaks can also occur from
BWRs that have pipes carrying primary water that are buried underground.
At some plants tritium has leaked out of the cooling pool in which spent
fuel is put after being unloaded from the reactor.
The estimates in the Baker study should be taken as indicative. In practice, the releases are much more variable from one reactor to the next. Figure III-2 shows tritium releases to the atmosphere from US pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs).

Curies released in 2008

Tritiated water vapor releases from PWRs
and BWRs, per site
1.00E+04
1.00E+03
1.00E+02
1.00E+01
1.00E+00

PWR

BWR

Figure III-2: PWR tritium releases to the atmosphere, 2008
Source: Adapted from data in NAS-NRC 2012, Figure 2.4

23

Figure III-2 allows the following conclusions regarding tritium emissions to the atmosphere from U.S. nuclear power plants, with the caveatthat releases vary from year to year and the chart represents only one yearof data (See Section b. below in this chapter):
1. On average, PWRs have much higher releases than
BWRs. This is because much more tritium is made in
PWRs in the course of reactor operation than in
BWRs. However, there are some BWR sites where releases are higher than PWR sites at the low end of releases. At the lowest end, Hope Creek (not shown) released only a small fraction of a curie of tritiated water
vapor in 2008.
2. The variation among PWRs is huge. The largest release from a single reactor, Palo Verde 1 (in Arizona),
in 2008 was about 900 curies, compared to about 30
curies from Calvert Cliffs 1 (in Maryland). The differences stem from variations in reactor design and operating characteristics (like primary water chemistry).
Figure III-3 shows tritium release variations in 2012. The range is huge
– from less than 10 curies to more than 1,000 curies (at left). The low end
applies mainly but not exclusively to closed nuclear power plants.

24

# of power plants

Tritiated water vapor emission variations
among nuclear power plants
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

0 to 10 10 to 20 to 40 to 60-80
Ci/y 20 Ci/y 40 Ci/y 60 Ci/y Ci/y80 to 100 to 300 to >1000
100
300
1000
Ci/y
Ci/y
Ci/y
Ci/y

Figure III-3: Variation in tritium air emission per year from some US nuclear power plants
Data source: Sandike 2014, Slide 21.

Tritium emissions to the air generally affect the radioactivity in rain andsnow and the tritium content of local water bodies. All of them can be andare often contaminated to levels far higher than would be present due tonatural sources and bomb testing residuals.
In 2006, Ken Sejkora of Entergy Nuclear Northeast (Pilgrim Station),a company that owns nuclear power plants, presented an analysis of concentrations of tritium in rainfall due to emissions from a nuclear power
plant of one curie per day continuous release. He estimated that concentration in rainwater falling on or around the site would depend on the rate andtype of rainfall (as raindrops or as fine mist) and whether the winds werecalm or not. Two scenarios of rainfall totaling 0.4 inches in a day (1 cm)
resulted in estimates of tritium concentrations in water of 20,000 picocuries
per liter (the drinking water limit) and as high as 36 million pCi/L – 1,800
times the drinking water limit – in case of rain in the form of a misty sprayin calm atmospheric conditions.34

34

Sejkora 2006

25

There is evidence of very high concentrations of tritium in precipitation in the form of a measurement at the Hope Creek nuclear power plantin New Jersey. The site has one boiling water reactor. In 2015, meltwaterfrom an icicle was discovered to be contaminated with tritium at a level of
10 million picocuries per liter, or 500 times the maximum allowable annual
average concentration under the drinking water standard:
On February 18, 2015, PSEG identified some drippingfrom an icicle near the north end of the Hope Creek Turbine Building and collected a sample on February 19,
2015, of the dripping water as part of its on-going evaluation to identify the cause of the indication of tritium inground water monitoring well BY. PSEG analyzed thesample and confirmed on March 3, 2015, that the dripping from the ice exhibited a tritium concentration of
about 0.01 uCi/ml [10,000,000 picocuries per liter]. On
March 4, 2015, PSEG informed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Nuclear
Engineering, in accordance with NEI 07-07, “Industry
Ground Water Protection Initiative.”35
The discovery was the result of an investigation of the cause of groundwatercontamination with tritium. No cause other than rainwater and snow could
be found:In late 2013, PSEG’s groundwater monitoring program
identified detectable tritium in a shallow onsite well (BY)
near the corner of the Hope Creek Administration Building. The building is within the site restricted area and is not

35

Dentel 201526

accessible to members of the public. PSEG’s evaluation, atthat time, concluded that the detectable activity was associated with precipitation recapture of gaseous radioactive effluent releases since: 1) there were no sources of tritium
near the area (e.g., pipes, tanks etc.); 2) there was no evidence of any leak or spill; and, 3) the concentrations of well
sample results correlated well with gaseous radioactive effluent releases over the same time period.36
Such high concentrations in precipitation may indicate high episodic
releases, raising questions about whether such releases are being adequately captured by monitoring. As noted above, the reported releaseto the atmosphere in 2008 was a small fraction of a curie. Thus, highyear-to-year variations are also indicated if the source was the Hope
Creek plant.
There is another nuclear power plant very near the Hope Creek
plant – the Salem plant, which has two PWRs. The NRC document
does not examine whether the highly contaminated rainfall camefrom Hope Creek emissions or Salem emissions or some combinationof both.
In sum, there are two direct sources of offsite tritium contamination due to air emissions from a nuclear power plant site:• Air emissions coming down as rainfall or snow and contaminating
soil and water around the nuclear plants and on their sites.
• Air emissions contaminating groundwater on the site, which
could then migrate offsite.

36

Ibid. p. 19

27

The value of 10 million picocuries per liter in water from the melted icicle
may be compared to the range of 20 million to more than 50 million picocuries
per liter in spent fuel pool water cited above.
The NRC does not require monitoring of offsite private wells that areused for drinking or irrigation or both. Neither does it require monitoringof rainwater or snow, despite evidence of heavy contamination at least
sometime. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does some monitoring of radionuclides around the country, but does not focus on rainfall
near nuclear plants. Further, private parties who own wells near the plants
would generally not test them for radionuclides. EPA drinking water standards apply only to public water systems and thus do not cover private wells.
The original intent was to spare private well owners the expense of monitoring. But this has created a loophole allowing contamination of wells due
to emissions from nearby nuclear power plants.
Rainwater and melted snow percolate into the groundwater and contaminate it. Further, when releases are routine, soil pores will retain waterand remain contaminated, especially in wet climates. Onsite groundwatercontamination can migrate offsite. Tritium contamination from the Braidwood Illinois plant site migrated offsite to private wells, exceeding 1,000
picocuries per liter in one case.37 In addition to rainfall and snowfall, tritiumcontamination of on-site groundwater can be due to leaks – as has been thecase at several nuclear plants.
Most nuclear power plants in the United States have had tritium leaks
at levels exceeding the drinking water limit of 20,000 pCi/L. According to
the NRC:
There are 61 nuclear power plant sites in the United Statesthat are currently [2017] operating. Records indicate 43 ofthese sites at one time or another have had leaks or spills
that involved tritium concentrations greater than or equal37

NRC 2005

28

to 20,000 pCi/L. Six sites are currently reporting tritium,from a leak or spill, in excess of 20,000 pCi/L. Althoughmany sites have had leaks or spills involving tritium, nosite is currently detecting tritium in the offsite environment, or in drinking water, in excess of 20,000 pCi/L. Tritium rapidly disperses and dissipates in the environment,
and as a result, tritium from leaks and spills is typicallynot detected outside the facility boundary.38
Sixteen of these plants have had peak groundwater tritium concentrations ofmore than 1 million picocuries per liter; concentrations have generally declined substantially since the dates of peak concentrations. They are shownin Table III-1.
Table III-1: US nuclear plants with peak groundwater concentrations
in excess of 1 million picocuries per liter
Peak

38

conc.

PCi/L

Date of peak2017 conc. PCi/L

Browns Ferry

7,520,000

January 2015

3,493

Brunswick

19,000,000

December 2010

280,943

Callaway

1,600,000

July 2014

1,944

Dresden

10,312,000

July 2004

251,000

Duane Arnold

2,150,000

October 2012

2,700

Grand Gulf

2,240,000

March 2014

3,200

Hatch

6,840,000

September 2011

22,000Indian Point

14,800,000

February 2016

200,000

Limerick

3,950,000

February 2009

369

LaSalle1,230,000

July 2010

11,000Millstone

4,000,000

November 2007

7,690

NRC 2017

29

Oyster Creek

10,000,000

2009

2,250

Palo Verde

4,200,000

March 1993

not detectable

Quad Cities

7,500,000

2008

15,700River Bend

1,135,000

February 2013

690,000

Salem

15,000,000

April 2003

41,400Source: NRC 2017

Note that this list has a mix of PWRs and BWRs; it consists of plants with
one reactor on site and plants with more than one reactor on site; the hightritium concentrations are attributed to leaks and spills. The document listing these reactors does not mention the possible contribution of precipitation to groundwater contamination.

b. Discharges to water bodies and concentrations in surface anddrinking water
Nuclear reactors also routinely discharge tritium to water bodies – rivers, lakes,
and oceans. The main source is when primary water, which is laced with tritium (and smaller quantities of other radionuclides) is discharged. Figure III-4
shows tritium releases in liquid effluents from several nuclear reactors of which
the National Research Council began a study. No particular trend of increasingor decreasing releases in years that are decades apart is evident.

30Tritiated water releases, 1975 and 2002
1.00E+04

Curies

1.00E+03
1.00E+02
1.00E+01
1.00E+00
1.00E-01

1975

2002

Figure III-4: Tritium releases in effluents of several reactors – BWRs at left and PWRs at right.
Data read off from NAS-NRC 2012, Chapter 2. Figure 2.10, and converted to curies

Surface water becomes contaminated with tritium as a result of tritium releases. The concentrations vary widely, depending on the volume of waterin the water body into which the discharge takes place, the nature of thewater body, and the amount of the discharge. Data from environmental
monitoring reports for the year 2016 of three nuclear power plants areshown in Table III-2 to illustrate the information available.
Table III-2: Surface and drinking water tritium
concentrations at three nuclear power stations for 2016 (Note)

Braidwood

Year
2016

Surface water
460

Comanche peakOconee2016
2016

12,925
4,285

Drinking water
488
Below
detection limit
317

Note: The measurements must be interpreted with caution due to possible high limits of detection and large measurement errors arising from that. Measurements below the limit of31

detection are normally cited with the symbol “<” before the number. None of the values inTable 2 had that caution.
Sources: Exelon 2017, Vistra 2017, and Duke Energy 2017

There are also prior instances of drinking water contamination.
Table III-3 shows four examples from 2006.
Table III-3: Tritium levels in drinking water atdrinking water plants near four nuclear plants, 2006

Nuclear Plant

McGuire 1&2(NC)
Oconee 1,2,&3(SC)
Vogtle 1&2 (near
Savannah River
Site, a nuclear
weapons plant)

Watts Bar 1 (TN)Range picocuries per liter

Mean (picocuries per liter)

Distancefrom plant

697 to 2,290

1,460

3.3 miles

298 to 370

340

18.9 miles

471 to 1,040

766

76 miles

394 to 817

606

24 milesComments
North Mecklenburg Water Treatment
Facility
Anderson
Water Plant
Purrysburg
Water Treatment plant(Note 1)
Public water
sampling location

Source: Makhijani and Makhijani 2009, Table 2, p. 6

Note 1: Contamination downstream of Vogtle is a mix of discharges fromthe Vogtle Plant and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.
According to the Savannah River Site’s website, about 64% of the total releases were from Vogtle and the rest from Savannah River Site for an unspecified year. Year- to-year variation is expected to be substantial becauseof variations in flow and variations in tritium releases from both Vogtle andSavannah River Site. The effect of tritium releases to the atmosphere is not
explicitly factored in; however runoff arising from tritium-contaminatedrainfall may affect the concentrations.

32

c.

Tritium in the soil

Soil can become contaminated with tritium due to leaks from power plants.
It is also contaminated due to tritium in rainfall. Pores in the soil have waterin them in varying amounts; the level of tritium in this pore water is related
to the level of tritium in the atmosphere. When contaminated rain falls on
the soil at tritium levels higher than before the rainfall, the concentration oftritium in the pore water will increase. After the rainfall ceases, there is adisequilibrium between the tritium in the moisture in the air above the soil
and the tritium level in the pore water at and near the soil surface. In thatcase, evaporation from the soil will increase the tritium contamination of
the air in the vicinity. Plants can absorb tritium from the moisture in the airand from the water in the soil. They convert some of that moisture into
organically bound tritium.

d.

Monitoring of tritium releases

The NRC requires power plant operators to monitor releases of radionuclides, onsite and offsite. The onsite and offsite releases from a plant arereported every year in the Effluent Report and the Environmental Reportrespectively. In the Effluent Report, the plant operator is required to give
quarterly data on the amount of tritium curies released from each reactor, including the concentration of tritium before the water is sent to theunderground pipe, the frequency at which the releases occur, and how
long the releases last. In some cases, only the total discharges from tworeactors may be measured. This may make it difficult to detect problems
or to infer their existence from the reported data. Further, the amount oftritium discharged from PWRs is highly variable, as noted above. Other
radionuclides are also reported.
Actual measurement practices at nuclear power plants vary considerably. The Offsite Dose Calculation Manual Guidance reports (NUREG-1301
for PWRs and NUREG-1302 for BWRs) direct the plant operator to have alower limit of detection (LLD) of 2,000 picocuries per liter; that limit can be33increased to 3,000 picocuries per liter if no drinking water pathway exists.
Most plant operators have lower LLDs (in the few hundreds of picocuries);
however, these lower limits are not required. As a result, some power plant
operators simply report that tritium levels are below the lower limit of detection. In some cases detection limit is not even specified.
Further, tritium measurements are done quarterly, using compositesof samples that are collected at various intervals, commonly monthly. Thismeans that samples from the times tritium is discharged (many times eachquarter) and the times that it is not, are put together and averaged to give aquarterly result. There are two main problems with this approach. There is
generally no independent verification by the NRC of when the samples are
actually taken. The NRC (and hence the public) depends on the reactor operator’s word that they are taken at the time of contaminated water discharge, and not before or after the discharge. As a result, there is no independent assurance of the representativeness of the samples and, hence, of
the accuracy of the data in providing estimates of total tritium releases.
Since tritium discharges are sometimes made into water bodies that areused for drinking downstream of the reactor (as is the case with the Braidwood plant), this lack of independent verification of discharges is troubling,
especially in the context of batch sampling.
If the time the samples are taken is not coordinated with plant discharges occurring over a period of time, the samples may not be representative of the discharges; in such cases, the estimates of total tritium discharges
would be inaccurate. There is at present no independent way for communities near nuclear plants to verify the accuracy of the discharges measurements and release estimates. This has become more important in light ofthe controversies surrounding the failure to report known tritium leaks.
It is noteworthy that despite evidence that serious contamination withtritium occurs in rainfall, and that it can be at levels hundreds of times
greater than the drinking water limit, the NRC does not require routine
monitoring of rainfall, either on the plant premises or offsite. Specifically,34

the NRC does not require that the public residing near nuclear plants who
have private wells to be alerted when there is a possibility that contaminatedrainfall may exceed the drinking water standard of 20,000 picocuries perliter. This gap in requirements exists despite the fact, noted above, that thenuclear industry itself has called attention to the problem of potentially very
high tritium concentration levels in rainfall. Granted that the drinking water standard is an annual average and rainfall is episodic; yet the drinking
water standard is a common reference concentration and should provide athreshold for informing the public of environmental contamination. Indeed, the threshold for public information should be much lower (seeChapter 7, for recommended revisions to drinking water standards, including for tritium).

35

4
Tritium Pathways andResidence Times in the Bodya.

Pathways

Once it is in the environment, tritium can reach people by a variety of pathways. It can be emitted from the source to the atmosphere, to surface water,or to groundwater. From there it can directly affect humans who ingest it
or otherwise come into contact with is via drinking water, rainfall, or snowfall. There are also a large number of pathways via the soil, uptake by vegetation, consumption of plant matter by people, consumption of plant matter by animals or fish, and so on, with the eventual endpoint being a humanbeing who is affected by tritium contaminated food, water, air or soil. Figure IV-1 below, from a publication of the French radiation research andsafety agency, IRSN, shows various pathways for tritium transport in theenvironment, particularly as it might relate to agricultural activities.
Tritiated water is rapidly incorporated and reaches into all parts of thehuman body in a brief time after it enters the body via drinking water, food, orabsorption through the skin. Here is the description of the biodynamics of tritiated water from the Argonne National Laboratory fact sheet on tritium:
Tritium can be taken into the body by drinking water, eating food, or breathing air. It can also be taken in throughthe skin. Nearly all (up to 99%) inhaled tritium oxide canbe taken into the body from the lungs, and circulating
blood then distributes it to all tissues. Ingested tritium oxide is also almost completely absorbed, moving quickly
36

from the gastrointestinal tract to the bloodstream. Withinminutes it is found in varying concentrations in body fluids, organs, and other tissues. Skin absorption of airborne
tritium oxide can also be a significant route of uptake, especially for exposure to high concentrations of tritiatedwater vapor, as could occur under conditions of high humidity during hot weather, because of the normal movement of water through the skin. For someone immersed
in a cloud of airborne tritium oxide (HTO), the uptake byabsorption through the skin would be about half that associated with inhalation. No matter how it is taken into
the body, tritium is uniformly distributed through all biological fluids within one to two hours. Tritium is eliminated from the body with a biological half-life of 10 days,
the same as for water.39

Figure IV-1: Illustrations of tritium pathways in agriculture.
Source IRSN 2010, p. 9, with permission. Copyright IRSN.
39

ANL 2007, p. 56; “tritium oxide” is tritiated water.

37

Note that tritium is distributed through all “biological fluids.” In otherwords, the parts of the body, like bones, that have less water, will also haveless tritium; those that have more water will have more tritium.

b.

Residence times

If there is a single intake of tritium, a biological half-life of 10 days meansthat almost 90% of the tritium will be excreted in about a month. But it willtake almost two-and-a-half months to eliminate essentially all the rest – allof which goes right back into the environment.
However, if tritium is continuously present in the environment, as for instance in drinking water, it will build up in the body. A constant amount of 1
picocurie per liter in the drinking water and an intake of 1 liter per day willbuild up to about 18 picocuries per liter in the body. Intake rates vary by age.
An adult male is usually considered to ingest 2 liters per day of water, as a reference amount (directly as water or as water contained in food and drink).
A part of the tritium in the environment and in the body becomes partof the hydrocarbon molecules of living beings – including all plants andanimals. As noted, when it is part of organic molecules, tritium is called“organically bound tritium” (OBT). There are two kinds of OBT. A good
description of OBT has been provided by the French safety agency, IRSN:40
Organically Bound Tritium (OBT): this form, in which
tritium is bound to organic matter, results from tritium
being incorporated in various organic compounds during
the synthesis process of living matter. Such organic compounds are distributed according to their specific chemical properties, which may explain the possible heterogeneous distribution of tritium among tissues. How stable
tritium is within such compounds depends on the nature
40

IRSN 2010, p. 3

38

of the bond between the tritium and the organic moleculeand on the organic molecule’s affinity with the different
biological tissues. A distinction is made between:
exchangeable tritium: there is an exchangeable fraction
when hydrogen atoms bound to oxygen, Sulphur or nitrogen are replaced by tritium and are readily accessible for
new exchanges; this fraction of tritium bound in labile
form to biomolecules is in equilibrium with the concentration of tritiated water in the intracellular environment;
non-exchangeable tritium: tritium is covalently bound tocarbon. This is a permanent bond as long as the biomolecule itself is not transformed nor destroyed by an enzymatic reaction. The amount of time that tritium remains
incorporated therefore depends on biomolecular turnover:fast in the case of molecules involved in the energy cycle,
and slower in the case of structuring molecules or macromolecules such as DNA or energy reserve molecules.
These exchange mechanisms are common to all living organisms, plant and animal alike. The distribution
between tritiated water, exchangeable and non-exchangeable tritium varies according to the respective intake of
HTO or OBT, the nature of the organic bonds generating
OBT and the metabolism of each individual species.41
Non-exchangeable OBT has a much longer half-life than exchangeable
OBT. Further, the partition of tritium between tritiated water, exchangeable
OBT and non-exchangeable OBT is dependent on the species.
41

IRSN 2010, p. 3

39

c.

Organically Bound Tritium (OBT)The issue of when, where, and how much tritium as water becomes organically bound and whether organically bound tritium bioconcentrates is acomplex one. One principal route from water to OBT is via plants. Whenthey take up tritiated water some of it becomes organically bound in theprocess of photosynthesis when plants make carbohydrates. From there theroute can become more complex:
Non-exchangeable OBT formed by photosynthesis appears initially in carbohydrates. Subsequently, metabolic
reactions result in the incorporation of OBT in complex
molecules such as polysaccharides, proteins, lipids andnucleic acids. The amount of OBT produced depends ona large number of environmental factors and plant parameters including light levels, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations, temperature, air circulation and watersupply, all of which show considerable diurnal and seasonal variations. OBT concentrations are reduced by conversion back to HTO through maintenance respiration,
but the process is slow. In the environment, OBT makes
up a few percent of the total tritium activity in most plants
but up to 90% in grains and hay crops, which have a highorganic content.42
Phytoplankton bioconcentrate tritium. Two types of phytoplankton were
exposed to tritiated water and then fed to mussels; both phytoplankton
transformed HTO into OBT in their tissues but to different extents. The
phytoplankton were also fed to mussels, in which tritium increased linearlywith the amount fed to them.43 The study’s conclusions are as follows:
42
43

Kim, Baglan, and Davis 2013, pdf p. 8. References within the quote are not included in the quote.
Jaeschke and Bradshaw 201040

Accumulation of organic tritium in the mussel tissues
from tritiated-phytoplankton demonstrate an environmentally relevant transfer pathway of tritium even whenwater concentrations are reduced, adding weight to theassertion that OBT acts as a persistent organic pollutant.
The persistence, potential for biomagnification and theincreased toxicity of organic tritium increases the potential impact on the environment following a release of
HTO. The study says that these issues should be taken
into account in the legislation to adequately protect theenvironment and humans.44
Kim, Baglan, and Davis note that OBT concentration in plants and fruits,reflect total (“time-integrated”) exposure to tritiated water.45 In otherwords, plant tissues accumulate tritium as the plant takes up more andmore tritiated water. Accidental discharges, reflecting non-equilibrium situations can result in significant bioaccumulation as has occurred in Walesdue to accidental discharge of biopharmaceuticals; in that case “OBT concentrations in mussels and benthic fish were 1000 times higher than the
HTO concentration in the water.”46 However, direct intake of tritiated water (in contrast to plants having a fraction of tritium as OBT) generally appears to results in roughly the same concentration of tritium in fish as in
the water according to a 2020 study of contamination at the Savannah River
Site in South Carolina.47 The same study examined other radioactive andheavy metal contamination in addition to tritium and concluded that much
was as yet not well understood:

44

Jaeschke and Bradshaw 2010
Kim, Baglan, and Davis 2013, pdf, p. 8.
46
Kim, Baglan, and Davis 2013, pdf p. 11.
47
Yu et al. 2020.
45

41

This study reported fish tissue concentrations of 137Cs andH, which have not been documented extensively in ecotox-

3

icological studies. Our results suggested that industrial operations such as nuclear material production at SRS could havelong-lasting impact on the aquatic ecosystem via the releaseof radionuclides and metals, and long-term monitoring ofphysiological effects and population level impact in biota exposed to these contaminants are recommended.48
The lack of ecotoxicological documentation indicates that while the concentrations may be documented, the ecological impact in terms of the toxicity, especially the combined toxicity, remains to be determined.
Over the long term, the tritiated water concentration, organicallybound tritium, and seawater concentrations appear to become comparable,
as indicated by research near the French reprocessing plant at La Hague.
Background concentration of tritium in seawater, largely due to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons is about 0.1 Bq per liter (2.7 picocuries
per liter). The concentration in seawater near La Hague was more than ahundred times higher at 11 Bq/liter (almost 300 picocuries per liter). OBT
concentrations in algae, fish, and shellfish built up to roughly the same level
as the elevated levels near La Hague – that is roughly a hundred times higher
than the background.49
A specific example where the importance of organically bound tritium relates to tritiated thymidine, which is an organic compound that can be incorporated into DNA. Experiments indicate that tritiated thymidine is “over 1000
times more efficient than HTO [tritiated water] on the basis of tritium concentration” in causing damage in “embryos up to the blastocyst stage.”50

48

Yu at al. 2020
ASN 2022, p. 62.
50
ICRP 90 p. 14
49

42

Under the circumstances of exposure to such a tritiated DNA precursor, if even one-tenth of one percent of the tritium is in this form, its effectwill be larger than tritiated water. This would not be the case for all formsof organically bound tritium, since thymidine is a DNA precursor. But it is
one example of the type of damage that could be done by non-exchangeableorganically bound tritium. The example and the research illustrate the large
variations in response and the critical importance of considering the specific chemical forms of tritium when evaluating its impacts.
Tritiated water as well as organically bound tritium have greater average concentrations in fetal tissues than in maternal tissues (see Chapter 6
below). The health effects on the developing embryo/fetus itself (e.g., early
miscarriages, malformations, and developmental effects) and on relevantorgans at critical periods of fetal development are not well understood inhuman beings. Further, as Straume has noted “the incorporation of tritium
into biomolecules of long-lived cells (e.g., neurons and oocytes) could result
in large integrated doses over the lifetime of the cells.”51
The impact of organically bound tritium needs much greater study ingeneral; that is even more the case in regard to its impacts on the embryoand the fetus. Most of the discussion in the rest of this book does not dependon the specifics of the various types of organically bound tritium, their residence times in the body because there is little literature on the impacts on
which this exploration is focused. For instance, the word “mitochondria,”
the focus of much of this book, does not even appear in the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s 2010 report on radiological safety and tritium.52

51

Straume 1991 p. 5
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission 2010. This report acknowledges tritium risks, but only at very
high doses, many orders of magnitude higher than usual exposures from nuclear power activities (p.
viii). It is surprising that the report did not consider the impact on mitochondria and cellular metabolism before arriving at its conclusions even though this organelle is the core of the energy system of all
multicellular plants, animals, and fungi.

52

43

5
Harm From Internal Radiation
Health impact considerations of ionizing radiation have been largely focusedon cancer risk. Within that framework, much of the attention has been devoted
to the risk estimates derived from Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data. This discussion seeks, first of all, to broaden the range of risks considered to non-cancer
risks and, within that, to accomplish three other things:
1.

To review the differences in impact of internal radiation relative to external radiation, including withreference to the variation in impacts according to theendpoint under consideration.

2.

To consider the impact of radionuclides that crossthe placenta on the embryo and the fetus, including
but not only the potential teratogenic impacts, especially in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy.

3.

To focus on tritium as the radionuclide to illustrate
the risks when the above two factors are combined,
because tritium in the form of water is a pervasive
pollutant in the nuclear age and also easily accesses
every part of the human body, from the time of theformation of ova and semen to old age.

It is useful to review the science of health physics as it stands today in relation to considering external and internal radiation and the different types

44

of ionizing radiation. As a preliminary, a general note on radiation and biological damage is in order. Ionizing radiation, the kind this book is concerned with, splits molecules and creates ions – hence the name. As we are
made of organic molecules, ionizing radiation can break up those molecules. Much of the study of radiation and cancer, for instance, involves thecreation of breaks in the nuclear DNA caused by radiation. For instance, aphoton or beta particle might create a “single strand break” in the DNA.
These occur normally and naturally as well; the body has repair mechanisms and they are generally satisfactorily repaired. “Double strand breaks”
occur when, as the term implies, both strands are broken – a situation inwhich repair is more complex – the DNA must find more than one location
to reconnect, with a greater possibility of mis-repair, a mutation that canbecome the locus of a future cancer – or not, depending on future triggering
events. Cell death may also result. Natural radiation causes such events, as
does radiation put into the environment by human activities or medical radiation. Indeed, the objective of radiation therapy in cancer treatment is tokill the cancer cells; the risk is collateral damage to nearby healthy cells.
Overall, the best hypothesis for protection of human health in regard
to cancer, based on numerous lines of evidence is that there is no thresholdfor cancer risk of radiation; for solid cancers the risk is linearly proportional
to exposure.53 That means that natural background radiation among thesources of cancer risk – along with all other risk factors. It should go without saying that the presence of natural risks should not be a license for pollution or infliction of human-caused risk.
The discussion in this chapter focuses on the impacts of internal radiation and how they are similar to or different from external radiation. Thatis because those differences are particularly important in the case of tritium(though not only tritium).

53

BEIR VII 2006; EPA 2011.

45

a.

The model of the body as a bag of water

Understanding of the health risks and damage of ionizing radiation – the kindenergetic enough to split apart molecules of matter – grew slowly at first after
the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen (or Roentgen) in 1895. The medical community began to use X-rays widely and health damage appeared
among its members very soon thereafter.54 Exposure times were long and theresults included symptoms of what we now know as high exposures, including
loss of hair. Radium dial painting provided the next painful lessons. Women
workers licked radium-laced paint brushes to shape their tips before application to dials to make them luminous. Necrosis of the jaw bone and bone cancer were the result. The practice was only banned after the women, sufferingfrom painful osteonecrosis – death of bone tissue – and bone cancer filed alawsuit against the United States Radium Corporation.
Understanding of radiation damage was accelerated after the start of
the Manhattan Project, the massive U.S. World War II effort to make nuclear bombs. Lessons from the experience of X-ray exposure and radium dial
painting were incorporated to set workplace exposure limits. A new discipline, called Health Physics, was born. As the term indicates, it was mostly
created by physicists.
Basically, the approach was to treat the body like a bag of water. It was
not an unreasonable starting point for the purpose of the Manhattan Project.
After all, an adult’s body is about 60 percent water; it is a larger percentage
in utero and in newborns. Almost all the rest consist of a variety of hydrocarbons, like fats and proteins, made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and acouple of dozen trace elements of which nitrogen and phosphorous are themost important by mass. Over 70 percent of the mass of the elements in the
body consists of just two elements: hydrogen and oxygen, and another 10
percent is carbon. As an example of how the bag-of-water model is used,

54

Sansare, Khanna, Kariodkar 2011.

46

experiments to understand the distribution of ionization in the body are carried out on “water phantoms,” which are quite literally bags of water in the
shape of a human body.
The bag-of-water model remains a useful way of understanding some
aspects of radiation because the main way that ionizing radiation impacts
the body is to break up the molecules of which it is composed – that is, toionize them. This occurs when radiation particles55 interact (or “collide”)
with those molecules and split them. Ionizations are directly caused by theenergy of radioactive particles deposited in the body. “Radiation dose” is themeasure of the amount of energy deposited in the body per unit weight ofthe body.56 This ionizing energy deposited in a unit mass of the body provides a scientific measure of the number of ionizations to be expected. This,in turn, could serve as a proxy for risk of specific outcomes including a variety of diseases.
The matter is, of course, much more complex. One of the most important complexities that has long been recognized is that radiation that deposits its energy in many cells (known as “low linear-energy transfer”, or“low-LET” radiation) creates different, and lesser, risks per unit of depositedenergy than radiation that deposits its energy in a small, concentrated volume, known as “high linear energy transfer” or “high-LET” radiation. When

55

Radioactive energy is carried by discrete particles. Electromagnetic radiation energy is carried in discrete packets called photons. Each photon carries a specific amount of energy corresponding to the frequency of the radiation. Ionizing photons are radiation of much higher frequency (and hence are much
more energetic) than photons of visible light. This higher energy enables them to ionize molecules ofmatter. Other types of ionizing radiation include “beta particles,” which are high energy photons, “alpha particles,” which are high energy helium nuclei, proton beams if their energy is high enough, andneutrons (which ionize indirectly).
56
A unit of radiation dose called a “rad” is the deposition of one erg of energy per gram of the body’s(or organ’s) weight; the same idea in metric units is called a “gray” (named after the British physicist
Louis Harold Gray), in which one joule of energy is deposited in a kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of the
body. Both units measure the same thing, much as centimeters and meters both measure length, butdifferent amounts of it. A gray is equal to 100 rad; it represents a very large amount of radiation for the
body to absorb. Since the body is mostly water, deposition of energy in the body, notably in its soft tissues, is roughly equivalent to deposition of energy in the same mass of water.

47

cell biology is profoundly disrupted in a small region, as with high-LET radiation, the chances for normal repair processes to work are reduced andchances for damage, such as mutations, to persist are increased. This difference in the amount of biological damage per unit of energy deposited has
been sought to be captured by a single parameter called “relative biologicaleffectiveness.” The word “effectiveness” refers to the efficacy in causing damage. To describe the amount of harm per unit of radiation dose, the amountof deposited energy per unit mass (rad or grays) is multiplied by the relative
biological effectiveness factor for that type of radiation to get an empiricalmetric for radiation harm, measured in rem or sievert. A standardized relative biological effectiveness factor for regulatory purposes is called a “quality
factor” or Q:
Radiation harm in rem or sievert = (radiation dose in rad orgrays) times relative biological effectivenessB (biological damage) rem (or Sv) = D (dose in rad or Gy) x Q
Unfortunately, the same word – “dose” – is applied to the metric of energy
deposited per unit mass and to that number multiplied by the relative biological effectiveness factor to assess the damage done by the specific energy
deposition under consideration. When assessing the issue of health impact,
the term “biological damage” – represented by “B” in the above equation, isreally a metric for biological damage or harm. As a metric for biologicaldamage, with its own unit – sievert (or rem) as distinguished from the unit
for deposited energy (gray (or rad), it deserves a specific word to describe itthat is different from dose, which denotes the latter.57 To be accurate, the57

I am indebted to Jessica Azulay for this insight. During one of IEER’s technical training workshops
several years ago, she asked why the term “dose” was used to refer to both deposited energy per unit
mass, and also when that dose was multiplied by an empirical relative biological effectiveness factor
that seeks to capture the relative harm of different types of radiation. She said that dose multiplied byrelative biological effectiveness was meant to indicate biological radiation harm; therefore it was no48

relative biological effectiveness factor should be specific to the type of biologicaldamage that is under consideration – something that is almost never done inregulatory practice and, for the most part, in the scientific literature as well. In
large measure that is because it is generally explicit or implicit that the risk under consideration is cancer risk, despite the fact that radiation exposure increases the risk for many other kinds of harm. Among other things, internalradiation exposure increases risks to pregnant women, the embryo and the fetus in a variety of ways, as discussed in this chapter.
Current standards generally assume that high energy gamma rays
(such as the gamma rays emitted by cesium-137) and most beta particles(for example, the beta particles from strontium-90 decay) have a relative
biological effectiveness factor of one — that is, the metric for harm is equal
to the amount of energy deposited in the tissue and therefore equal to thedose. Alpha particles, on the other hand, which deposit all their energy in asmaller number of cells or even entirely in one cell, are assigned an RBE of
20. That is, the standards assume an alpha particle will do 20 times morebiological damage than a gamma ray that deposits the same amount of energy in the body. Neutrons, which ionize indirectly, have different relative
biological effectiveness factors, depending on the energy of the neutrons.
These factors are usually applied in the context of cancer risk assessment.58
The biological damage caused by radiation evidently depends on thespecific type of damage under consideration; this also means that the specific cells irradiated and the specific organ irradiated are also factors to betaken into account.

longer a simple, physical measure. Using the same word “dose” for both was misleading and confusing.
I agree. Dose multiplied by the relative biological effectiveness for a particular type of damage might bedesignated as “biological damage unit” or BDU for the specific harm at issue.
58
In the case of the effectiveness of radiation in killing cells, a more precise metric is used (as this is important when radiation is used in cancer therapy to kill cancer cells). In that case, relative biological effectiveness is defined as the effectiveness of a particular kind of radiation to kill a cell relative to a 250
kilovolt photon. Waker 2012, slide 8. Waker notes that relative biological effectiveness factor depends
on the endpoint – that is the specific biological impact -- being studied.

49

b.

Relative biological effectivenessExamining different endpoints greatly expands the range of relative biological effectiveness factors that should be applied. Let us briefly consider why
it is critical to apply relative biological effectiveness factors to the specifictypes of harm being evaluated using two examples:•

Sister chromatid exchange frequency; and•The differences between the impacts of radiation on
the embryo and fetus in early pregnancy versus assessing cancer risk.

Sister chromatid exchange is exchange of genetic material that occurs during mitotic cell reproduction. Excessive exchange can be harmful. Research
by Hatsumi Nagasawa and John B. Little, published in the journal Cancer
Research59 compared sister chromatid exchange induced by low-LET radiation (high energy x-rays) with that induced by high-LET radiation (alphaparticles, emitted in the process of plutonium-238 decay). They found thata rather high level of low-LET radiation – 1 to 2 grays (100 to 200 rads)
produced the same level of genetic damage as indicated by sister chromatid
exchange as just 0.31 milligray of high-LET radiation (plutonium-238 decay alpha particles), both being administered at high rates to Chinese hamster ovary cells. This implies a relative biological effectiveness for the particular genetic endpoint of 3,200 to 6,400. Thus, the relative biological effectiveness of alpha radiation, based on these experimental results, would be 160 to
320 times greater than the factor of 20 applied in regulatory practice to assess
cancer risk. The typical factor used to compare the cell killing effectivenessof gamma rays with alpha radiation is 10. The factor for induction of sister
chromatid exchange frequency indicated by this experiment is greater thanthat factor by 320 to 640 times.
59

Nagasawa and Little, 199250

A central finding of the Nagasawa-Little paper was that 30 percent of
the cells showed increased sister chromatid exchange frequency eventhough less than one percent of the cells were traversed by an alpha-particle.
In other words, a very large part of the damage caused to the ovary cells was
not only due to the high rate of linear energy transfer (high LET) in the
directly affected cells. More than 30 “bystander” cells were impacted forevery cell in which the alpha particle directly deposited energy. Very large
relative biological effectiveness factors were also inferred by Khadim et al.
in their experiment with hematopoietic clonal cells derived from stem cells
that “survived the passage of one or more radiation tracks before the initiation of clonal proliferation” – that is, the experiment was for an endpointof radiation that was not cell death. They observed “a high frequency of
non-clonal aberrations in the clonal descendants compatible with α-emitters inducing lesions in stem cells that result in the transmission of chromosomal instability to their progeny.” The effect was not observed when
the cells were subject to x-rays.60
Some impacts of radiation exposure other than cancer are explored in
the next chapter (Chapter 6); we consider here the basic biological difference between considering impacts on the embryo and fetus, especially earlyin the pregnancy, on the one hand and a fully developed adult on the other.
There is a central biological dynamic at the two times that is different.
When an ovum is fertilized, creating a zygote, the stage is set for very rapid
cell division. Enough mass must be created with enough complexity so thatthe blastocyst, as it is called, can implant itself on to the wall of the womb,
usually between five and nine days after fertilization. There are no repair
mechanisms. Damage to the blastocyst before and after implantation, orsome problem with the zygote itself, is frequent – so frequent that a large
fraction of fertilizations result in failed pregnancies either before implantation or in the weeks immediately following. The exact fraction is unknown

60

Khadim et al. 199251

because such early miscarriages generally occur before a women realizes she
is pregnant. On the order of a fifth of fertilizations fail to implant and evenmore result in an early miscarriage in the days after implantation.61 Bothgenetic and environmental factors are involved; indeed, there is not a sharp
dividing line between the two because ova and sperm can be and are damaged by environmental factors.
A basic biological-ecological way of looking at the problem is that for
fully grown people, ionizing radiation impacts generally occur in the context of day-to-day routine homeostatic functioning – the body is in dynamic
equilibrium with its environment. That is not at all the case for the embryoand the fetus that are developing and growing rapidly. For instance, thedrastic negative impact of cell-killing in the earliest stages of pregnancy
contrasts starkly with an alpha particle killing a cell in an adult most ofwhose cells are, with critical exceptions (such as oocytes), replaced in thespace of days or months.
Thus, cell-killing, the lack of effective repair, the rapid creation of organs from stem cells are critical to understanding radiation (and other environmental) harm to the embryo and then fetus, especially in the phases oforgan development (which for the brain continue after birth); quite thecontrary is true for adults. In the latter case, dead cells are removed by normal metabolic processes, because cell death and replacement are part of thehomeostatic functioning of grown people.
In contrast, embryonic and fetal stages are, by their nature, non-homeostatic. For adults, damaged cells that do not die are important, including for cancer risk, because it is those damaged surviving cells that become
the loci for cancer, if there are subsequent triggering event(s).62 Further,cancer risks for specific organs involve estimation of dose to the whole organ (integrated over time in the case of low dose-rates).63 Teratogenic risks
61

Danielson 2020
See for example Section 2, EPA 2011.
63
See EPA 2011 for instance.
6252

during organogenesis are quite different. They involve non-stochastic effects – like cell killing or genetic damage – in rapidly dividing stem cells. In
that context it is far more important to consider specific endpoints and specific cells; dose and damage are not averaged over the multitude of cells ina whole organ, which is still being formed.
It is important to note in this context that the concept of relative biological effectiveness is being applied to a non-stochastic effect, that is, a deterministic effect. The concept of relative biological effectiveness has generally been applied to adjust stochastic risk for a single end point – cancer– to radiation with different rates of linear energy transfer.64 Generally two
or more adverse events separated in time characterize cancer risk; repair
mechanisms also play a role. Further, cancer risks for specific organs involve estimation of dose to the whole organ (integrated over time in the caseof low dose-rates).65 Teratogenic risks during organogenesis are quite different. They involve non-stochastic effects – like cell killing or genetic damage – in rapidly dividing stem cells. In that context it is far more important
to consider specific endpoints and specific cells to estimate particular teratogenic risks.
In sum, a relative biological effectiveness factor or 2.2 for tritium compared to gamma radiation66 may well be reasonable for adult cancer risk
estimation, within the limitations of the concept. However, as the above
discussion shows, specific factors must be calculated for endpoints otherthan cancer, especially in the context of pregnancy.

c. Impact on mitochondria
Just as most health impact literature relating to ionizing radiation has focused on cancer risk, it has also focused on mutations in the nuclear DNA,
which is in the form of the famous double helix. However, all multi-cellular64

See for example EPA 2011, Section 2.
See EPA 2011 for instance.
66
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission 2010, p. ix
6553

living creatures including plants, animals, and fungi as well as many others,
contain organelles in their cytoplasm called mitochondria. Figure V-1
shows a schematic of a typical animal cell. The double-helix DNA is inside
the nucleus; the cytoplasm, where radionuclides would first enter the cell,surrounds the nucleus. There are hundreds to thousands of mitochondria
in each human cell (except red blood cells).

Figure V-1. Schematic of an animal cell. 1. Nucleolus; 2. Nucleus; 3. Ribosomes; 4.
Vesicle; 5. Rough endoplasmic reticulum; 6. Golgi apparatus; 7. Cytoskeleton; 8. Smooth
endoplasmic reticulum; 9. Mitochondrion; 10. Vacuole; 11. Cytosol; 12. Lysosome; 13.
Centriole; 14. Cell membrane.
Source: Wikimedia commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animal_Cell.svg

Mitochondria are the core of the body’s energy system, converting a varietyof organic molecules into ATP, the energy currency that enables us to function – that is, enables our hearts to beat, our lungs to expand and take in air
and contract to exhale, our mouths to open and close so we can eat, or our
fingers to move in order to type or to play the violin. They are also the communication system between the environment outside the cell and the nucleus. Each mitochondrion has its own DNA, abbreviated as mtDNA,
which is circular in shape. (Nuclear DNA is often abbreviated nDNA when54

both kinds of DNA are being discussed; we use this convention in the restof this book.) Mitochondria, like other organelles in the cytoplasm, arebathed in the cytoplasmic fluid, called cytosol, which is primarily water.
This is a critical fact in understanding the impact of ionizing radiation incells, including its potential health impacts.
The cytoplasm occupies most of the volume of the cell and contains
water that can be ionized by the beta particles of tritium. MtDNA is ten
times more likely to suffer mutations due to ionizing radiation than nuclear
DNA. Besides being the core of the body’s energy system, mitochondria arealso control aging and immune response. Thus damage to mtDNA can haveprofound systemic impacts on health – including, but not only, cancer. Yet
the impact of radiation on mtDNA, on the body’s energy system, on aging,and on the interactive damage from other pollutants is scarcely assessed in
the literature on radiation risk. For instance, the BEIR VII report contains
only a dozen or so mentions of mitochondria, with no examination of thesystemic risks that mtDNA damage might create.
Further, mtDNA is an inheritance from the maternal side alone, unlike
nuclear DNA, where the male and female each contribute 23 chromosomes.
The metabolism of the entire body has its counterpart in the metabolic processes that take place in each cell. Basically, we get energy when organic
molecules like carbohydrates are oxidized: we “burn” calories. Each cell has
a balance of oxidants and anti-oxidants that is maintained as part of thefinely tuned metabolic functioning of each cell and the whole body inhealthy living beings. An excess of oxidants – chemical species that oxidizeorganic matter into simpler parts, and ultimately just carbon dioxide andwater – can damage cells; a deficiency can cause a lack of energy to run the
body. Figure V-2 shows a schematic of mitochondrial DNA, which is circular, and its regions.

55

Figure V-2: Schematic diagram of mitochondrial DNA showing its regions
Source: Wikimedia at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mitochondrial_DNA_en.svg
Commons Author: Derivative work, translation by Knopfkind, jalyout by jhc

One of the ways that ionizing radiation and many other pollutants damage
living cells is by creating an excess of oxidants. There are many kinds ofoxidants; those that contain oxygen are known as “reactive oxygen species”
or ROS for short. Cell metabolism involves reducing and oxidizing chemical reactions; as a result, there are normally reactive oxygen species in cells,balanced by the presence of reducing species. It is excess reactive oxygen
species that create damage, oxidizing in excess of restorative capacity. Excess reactive oxygen species are created in cells by pollutants. In the specificcase of tritium, its beta particle emissions ionize molecules, including water,
the “hydroxyl radical” (OH), which is the most reactive of reactive oxygen
species, is among the ones created.
The 2006 National Academies report, BEIR VII, notes the potential
for ROS to damage mitochondria:
56

…oxidative damage cannot be considered a single entity,
but is dependent on the chemical source of the oxidation.
Mutants sensitive to hydrogen peroxide included an
overrepresentation of mitochondrial respiratory functions, but those sensitive to diamide encompassed genes
involved in vacuolar protein sorting. This makes it especially difficult to predict what kinds of damage would result from endogenous reactive oxidative species. Endogenous damage could present its own unique spectrum ofgenes required for resistance, different from each of theexogenous sources as well as from ionizing radiation.67
Pirini et al. have noted the special vulnerability of mtDNA among smokers:
Mitochondrial DNA is extremely vulnerable. Defects in
the respiratory chain can lead to an increased productionof ROS, increasing in turn the probability of nuclear DNA
damage and increases in mtDNA content, a compensatory mechanism for the damages to the respiratory chain
and the lack of energy production. Moreover, genes belonging to oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial
dysfunction pathways are differentially methylated
among smokers.68
While Pirini et al. is about the damage caused by smoking, the mechanism
discussed is the creation of excess reactive oxygen species, which is also theprincipal route for impact of ionizing radiation, including tritium beta particles.

67
68

BEIR VII 2006, p. 42
Pirini et al. 201557

Finally, mitochondria are the core of the energy system of all multicellular animals, plants and fungi. Thus ecological toxins, including radioactive materials, that cause mtDNA mutations create risks that could ripple
through entire ecosystems.

d.

Considering tritium dangers and risks

Tritium outside the body should be considered differently from tritium inside the body (whether as tritiated water or organically bound tritium).
Once tritium crosses into a cell, its beta particle energy will generally bedeposited entirely within that cell. The average and maximum stopping distances of tritium beta particles in water are 0.42 microns and 5.2 microns,
respectively.69 This is somewhat smaller than the range of diameters of cell
nuclei and, therefore, also smaller than cell diameters. As a result, each tritium decay will typically result in hundreds of ionizations, both in the nucleus and in the cytoplasm; the most energetic beta particles will create wellover a thousand ionizations.70
As noted in the National Academies BEIR VII report, exposure to beta
particles can create the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, creating oxidative
stress in the cell. Hydroxyl radicals are produced when the ions created bycollisions between beta particles and water molecules go on to collide withother water molecules. Essentially all of the energy of ionizing radiation
emitted by tritium is in the form of beta particles.
The hydroxyl radical can create a very substantial amount of intracellular damage, including DNA damage:69

NRC 2015, p. E-38
For instance, the ionization energy of water is about 12.6 eV; at that rate, the average beta particle energy of 5.7 keV would produce about 450 ionizations of H2O molecules. Source: NIST 2001. The maximum beta particle energy would result in over 1,470 ionizations of water molecules. Of course, the ionizations from a decay would not be confined to a single type of molecule (though water is the mostabundant). Ionizations of organic molecules which have a binding energy of a few electron volts would
be even more abundant.

70

58

The relatively long-lived (about 10–5 s) OH• radical is believed to be the most effective of the reactive species; as anoxidizing agent, it can extract a hydrogen atom from thedeoxyribose component of DNA, creating a DNA radical.
Early experiments demonstrated that about 70% of the
DNA damage can be prevented by the addition of OH•
scavengers….Because OH• is so highly reactive, it has
been estimated that only the radicals formed within about
3 nm of DNA can react with it….71
The literature on cellular damage due to excess reactive oxygen species incells is quite abundant, since excess ROS are created by a variety of pollutants in a variety of circumstances. Since that is also the main mechanism
for damage caused by tritium, it is possible to tap into this larger literature
to gain insights on tritium beta particle harm as well.
Excess ROS can attack mitochondrial DNA; in turn, mitochondrial
dysfunction may cause genomic instability, possibly with heritable impacts.72 It can also contribute to neurological diseases.73 What would be theimpact of such mitochondrial dysfunction produced by the excess reactive
oxygen species created by ionizations in the cytoplasm in the embryo andfetus? Ruder et al. examine the impacts and risks of diet on pregnancy,
mainly through assessing the oxidative impacts of diet – beneficial, when
there are anti-oxidants, and stressful when there are not. Specifically, these
impacts are hypothesized to include early failed pregnancies:
Reproductive failure is a significant public healthconcern. Although relatively little is known about factors
affecting fertility and early pregnancy loss, a growing

71

BEIR VII 2006, p. 29. Italics added.
Kim et al. 2006.
73
Arun, Liu, and Donmez, 20167259

body of literature suggests that environmental and lifestyle factors play an important role. There is sufficient evidence to hypothesize that diet, particularly its constituent
antioxidants, and oxidative stress (OS) may influence thetiming and maintenance of a viable pregnancy. We hypothesize that conditions lead to OS in the female affecttime-to-pregnancy and early pregnancy loss.74

74

Ruder et al. 200860

6
Teratogenic Impacts on the Embryo and Fetus
We can now consider the question of the impacts and risks of radiation exposure, especially internal radiation exposure, to the embryo and the fetus
as a topic in its own right.

a. Transfer of radionuclides to the embryo and fetus
Internal exposure of the embryo and fetus occurs when radionuclides aretransferred from the mother to the embryo and the fetus through the fluidsthat are exchanged between the two. Evidently, radionuclides can only
reach the embryo and fetus if they are in the woman’s body when she ispregnant. But if the biological half-life of the radionuclide is long enough,it will still be in in her body when she becomes pregnant, and be available
for transfer to the embryo and fetus.
A 2001 report of the National Radiation Protection Board publishedthe transfer ratios of various common radionuclides from the mother to thefetus.75 For some radioactive materials, like plutonium, the ratio of fetal tomaternal concentration depends on whether the intake was before or during pregnancy and also on when during the pregnancy the intake occurred.
For others, the ratios are independent of time of intake. Table VI-1 showssome of the fetal to maternal radionuclide concentration ratios as publishedin the British report.

75

NRPB 2001. The NRPB is a British radiation board.

61

Table VI-1 Fetal to maternal radionuclide concentration ratios

Element
H in HTO

Intakes prior toPregnancy
1.6

Intakes during
Pregnancy
1.6

H in OBT

1.6

1.6

Organic carbon

1.5

1.5

Phosphorus

0.5

10

Sulphur1

2

Potassium

1

1

Cobalt

0.2

1

Zinc

2

2

Technetium

1

1

Ruthenium

0.01

0.2

Cesium

1

1

Lead

1

1

Bismuth0.1

0.1

Thorium (see note)

0.03

0.1;0.3;1

Uranium

0.1

1

Plutonium (see Note)

0.03

0.1;0.3;1

Americium

0.01

0.1

Source: NRPB 2001, Table 1; only some of the radionuclides in that table are shown here
Note: The three ratios shown for thorium and plutonium are for intakes during the first,
second, and third trimesters.

These facts about maternal-fetal radionuclide transfer establish a clear imperative to limit and, if possible, eliminate, man-made additions to the radionuclide burdens in ecosystems because once there, the long-lived ones
will tend to become part of the food chain. The short-lived ones may also
cause severe impacts, as for instance, when women who were pregnant at

62

the time of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing or in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents were exposed to shortlived iodine isotopes. Other radionuclides, such as zinc-65, which has a
half-life of about eight months, are also important in this context. Zinc is
an essential mineral that plays many vital roles in the body, including in its
immune system, in healing wounds, and in the process of cell division. Notethat the fetal to maternal ratio of zinc is two, so that this radioactive zinc65 would be even more concentrated in the fetus than carbon-14 or tritium.
For instance, zinc-65 was an important contributor to radiation dose due
to U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. Fish, a staple of the Marshallese diet, was an exposure pathway, including for pregnant women.76

b. The establishment view of teratogenic impacts
In the first part of the pregnancy, the potential harms and risks can be studied under the general rubric of “teratogenic impacts.” In the matter of radiation risk, it is useful to start with the 1988 study of internal radiation exposure done by the U.S. National Academies in one of their periodic reports
on radiation health effects. This report, commonly known as the BEIR IV
report,77 had a section in Chapter 8 entitled “Fetal Effects, Teratogenesis,
and Neonatal Effects of In Utero Exposure.” Two kinds of impacts werediscussed: early miscarriages, including failures of implantation of the blastocyst; and harms caused during the period of organ formation, known asorganogenesis.
In regard to “preimplantation loss” of the embryo, BEIR IV postulates
that there is a threshold of 10 rad (0.1 gray) based on laboratory experiments on animals subjected to external radiation and “[t]heortical considerations” because a minimum number of cells must be killed before there is

76

Franke 2002
“BEIR” stands for “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation.” The most recent report in this series was
published in 2006, and is known as the BEIR VII report, since two others were published between BEIR
IV and BEIR VII>77

63

a preimplantation loss.78 The report also arrives at a similar conclusion
about teratogenic effects during organogenesis. A part of the reasoning was
as follows:
During the major organogenesis state, the embryo appears
to be sensitive to all the known teratogenic effects of radiation….Windows of one to a few days are commonly observed during which a given developmental abnormality
can be induced during the major organogenesis stage.
Thresholds are expected theoretically and have been observed; single doses below about 10 rad of low-LET radiation appear ineffective.79
The threshold observations are based on irradiation of animals with external radiation in experiments. The National Academies and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) have recognized ateratogenic impact on the central nervous system as having no threshold.
This conclusion is based on analysis of outcomes of women who were pregnant at the time of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
The ICRP issues numbered reports on a variety of topics relating to theimpacts of radiation. ICRP 49 dealt with impacts of in utero radiation on
the brain. The report included an analysis of women who were pregnant
when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945, and who survived those bombings. The epidemiologic
analysis of the outcomes is described in ICRP 49 as follows:First, 30 of the 1 599 pregnancies included in the revised
clinical sample terminated in a child with severe mental
78
79

BEIR IV, p. 383.
BEIR IV 1988, p. 383, italics added.

64

retardation and, second, 18 of these, or 60%, had disproportionately small heads, that is, a head with a circumference more than two standard deviations below the meanobserved among the 1 599. Of those pregnancies that terminated in a mentally retarded child…no fewer than 19(and 17 of the 21 who received exposures of 0.01 Gy or
more) were exposed in the 8th through the 15th week after
fertilization. This is many times the expectation based on
the assumption of no effect of fetal age at exposure. In thiscontext, to reiterate, severe mental retardation implies anindividual unable to form simple sentences, to solve simple problems in arithmetic, to care for himself or herself,
or is (was) unmanageable or institutionalized.80
The term “severe mental retardation” is used here in the clinical sense provided by ICRP 49, as quoted above. ICRP 49 provides a dose-response estimate of 0.4 per gray – ranging from “one case per hundred individuals exposed to less than 0.01 Gy [1 rad] to approximately 40 cases per hundred at
an exposure of 1 Gy [100 rad].”81 Finally and importantly, while a substantial majority of the impacts observed occurred between the 8th and 15th
weeks, an increase in “severe mental retardation” was also noted for exposures well beyond that time – up to 25 weeks after fertilization.82
80

ICRP 49, 1986, p. 20; italics added
ICRP 49 1986, p. 31, italics added. The evidence of severe mental retardation at less than one rad anda linear dose-response curve leading to a conclusion that there is no threshold is consistent with otherevidence for lack of thresholds. This includes the evidence for substantial increases in childhood leukemia and brain cancer at 1 rad presented to you on October 27, 2021 by Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman,
Medical Perspectives, October 27, 2021, slide 11; hereafter Smith-Bindman 2021.
82
ICRP 49, 1986, Table 1, p. 21. ICRP 49 found that “simplest statistical model consistent with the data
appears to be a linear one without threshold.” p. 31. The ICRP analysis also reported on a decline in IQ
that was “consistent with the interpretation that there is a dose-related shift in IQ and that this could
explain the increase in clinically classified cases of severe retardation. They do not exclude the possibility of two separate effects…. The statistical uncertainties in the data, and the known problems of obtaining a high consistency in intelligence testing, prevent quantitative statistical analysis of these datafrom refining these qualitative conclusions.”
81

65

The facts and analysis in ICRP 49 make very clear that teratogenic impacts should have become a principal element of the scientific and publichealth discussion of the impacts of low-levels of exposure decades ago –dating back at least to ICRP 49. Certain conclusions are clear from BEIR IV
and ICRP 49:
1. Radiation exposure can result in early failed pregnancies; they are hard to detect because women may notrealize that they are pregnant from the very fact of anearly failure.
2. Radiation exposure can produce a variety of teratogenic effects, especially during the most sensitive period of organogenesis.
3. There is no threshold for “severe mental retardation”
caused by radiation exposure between the 8th and 25th
week of pregnancy. A linear no-threshold for impact
means that exposures during this period would be expected to produce the severe disabilities, with thenumber being proportional to the population dose topregnant women in the relevant period of pregnancy.

c. Reconsidering certain aspects of the establishment view
There are also issues relating to teratogenic impacts that need revisiting.
BEIR IV considered failed pregnancies only in the earliest post-fertilization period and teratogenic impacts only in the balance of the embryonicperiod up to 50 days of the pregnancy for all but the central nervous system.
In the latter case it considers a window up to 19 weeks.83 This is very important, but far too limited. Harm can occur leading to failed pregnancies
can occur earlier and later than that window of 50 days.
83

BEIR IV 1986, pp. 383-384.

66

For instance, Table 4 of ICRP 49 mentions possible neural tube defects(“dysraphic abnormalities”) during the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy.84 As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has explained,
failure of neural tubes to close can lead to severe teratogenic effects, including spina bifida and anencephaly (the failure of the brain to develop at all,or develop incompletely). The CDC states that “Pregnancies affected by anencephaly often result in miscarriages, and the infants who are born alive
die very soon after birth.”85 Thus a broader view is needed even for miscarriages. This is also true of teratogenic impacts more generally.
For instance a 1979 synthesis study, “based exclusively on the abundant but dispersed data in the literature,”86 covered the period of central
nervous system development starting at 15 days after conception throughthe entire pregnancy and the post-natal period, when the pre-frontal cortex
continues to develop. Thus, the vulnerability period for central nervous system teratogenic impacts extends through the entire pregnancy as the Teratology Society also makes clear. According to the overview provided, a variety of risks extend throughout pregnancy, with different organ development risks being prominent in different periods. The Society summarizes
possible adverse outcomes during pregnancy as follows:
Teratogenic exposure during any period or phase of development can have dire consequences….In general, disruption of the earliest developmental stages (gametogenesis; fertilization, cleavage, and blastulation) results in theloss of the conceptus (that is, a miscarriage, often before
the woman realizes she is pregnant). Disruption somewhat later during primary morphogenesis and organogenesis often results in major structural anomalies (a84

ICRP 49 1986, p. 30.
Beth Burke et al., p. 6.
86
Zamorano and Chuaqui 1979, pdf p. 1.
85

67

“birth defect” for example, a neural tube defect, such as
spina bifida; a ventral body wall defect, such as gastroschisis; a heart defect, such as the formation of a single
outflow tract; a limb anomaly, such as phocomelia; or afacial cleft, such as cleft lip or palate). Disruption during
the late embryonic and fetal period generally results in abnormal organ differentiation, growth, and function (forexample, cognitive impairment, hearing loss, neonatal hypoglycemia, lung immaturity). Thus, the timing of a particular teratogenic exposure can result in drastically different outcomes.87
The postulated threshold of 10 rad (0.1 Gy) also needs re-examination since
it is based on laboratory experiments on animals using external radiation,
as regards both the laboratory setting and the radiation source.
First, research on wildlife compared to laboratory experiments conducted since then puts this conclusion into considerable doubt. Specifically,a Chernobyl study compared laboratory experiments on a single species
with the impact of radiation on wildlife seen in the field over wide range ofdose rates. It concluded that wildlife is eight times more sensitive to radiation than indicated by laboratory experiments as measured by the medianvalue of hazardous dose rate “suggesting that organisms in their natural environmental [sic] were more sensitive to radiation.”88 This single study issuggestive rather than definitive. Still, the magnitude of the field and laboratory difference provides ample basis for caution in assuming that a threshold for most teratogenic effects, if it exists, is as high as 0.1 Gy (10 rad) of
low-LET radiation.

87

Bleyl and Schoenwolf 2014
Field radioecological studies are critical. For instance, wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone appears to be much more sensitive to ionizing radiation than indicated by laboratory experiments – Gernier et al. 2013.
88

68

Second, a relative biological effectiveness factor that is specific as to thetype of radiation and the harm being considered needs to be applied to internal radiation when relating it to the postulated threshold of 10 rad (0.1gray) of external radiation exposure (see Chapter 5 above). BEIR IV applies
a relative biological effectiveness factor of 10, based on in-vitro cell killing
data, to external low-LET radiation data to conclude that there is a threshold of one rem for internal high-LET radiation. Thus, for internal alpha radiation, the threshold inferred by BEIR IV is one rem.
However, cell death is not the only relevant endpoint. As discussed in
Chapter 5, experimental data indicate that the relative biological effectiveness factor for increased sister chromatid exchange frequency is in the thousands – that is, at least two orders of magnitude higher than for externalradiation. This would indicate a threshold for damage of less than 10 millirem (0.1 millisievert). The Khadim et al. experiment indicates that there
may be certain impacts, like non-clonal genetic aberrations that are unique
to internal radiation because they were not in evidence when external radiation was applied.89 Such phenomena indicate that for some endpoints
there are qualitative differences between internal and external exposure.
For those endpoints, relative biological effectiveness is not an applicableconcept. Internal radiation appears to produce some genetic impacts thatexternal radiation may not.

d.

Multigenerational impacts

The previous section relates to teratogenic impacts on the embryo and fetus. Beyond that, consideration of multigenerational impacts is also essential. That there are intergenerational risks is clearly indicated by the established fact of maternal to fetal radionuclide transfers.90 Radionuclide bodyburdens acquired prior to pregnancy also impact the embryo and fetus due

8990

Khadim et al. 1992.
ICRP 88 2002, NRPB 2001, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 1996.

69

to radionuclide transfer from the mother, if the biological half-life of theradionuclides is long-enough.
There are a number of areas to of concern relating to the goal of protecting women and future generations:•

How long does each radionuclide transferred to thefetus stay in the child as it develops into an adult?
What are impacts on subsequent generations of thosebody burdens? How does that vary between males andfemales?

•

What is the impact on ova of internal radiation exposure during the oogenesis period of pregnancy andalso due to exposure during the post-puberty maturation of ova? Specifically, what are the risks of germline
mutations during oogenesis? What are the corresponding risks related to sperm, which are transient,
as well as to primary spermatocytes?

•

What are the risks of mutations in mitochondrial
DNA during oogenesis and the related implications
for the female child and succeeding generations? How
many generations can mitochondrial DNA mutations
be expected to last?

•

What are the intergenerational risks of germline mutations in oocytes due to ionizing radiation, includinginternal exposure, producing teratogenic outcomes in
the children of a woman who was exposed as a fetus?

•

Can mitochondrial DNA damage acquired during
pregnancy create general health vulnerabilities for
subsequent generations, for instance, via compromised intra-cellular metabolism?

70•What radionuclides are important for multigenerational impact, based on the following considerations?
oUbiquity of pollution – tritium is a prominent example in terms of the quantities routinely emitted
and discharged from nuclear power plants, reprocessing plants, and other military and commercial
facilities, whether as water, water vapor, organicallybound, or other relevant chemical forms.

oSpecific radionuclide pollutants that impact somelocations more than others a result of specific activities carried out there, such as uranium mining, uranium milling, nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear
power plant accidents, with Chernobyl and Fukushima being the most prominent examples; however in the case of atmospheric testing and some nuclear accidents the damage can be and has been overvast areas, and even global;oLeaks and discharges from a variety of waste disposal and waste management activities as well as residual contamination of soils and waters at nuclear
facilities. Uranium and radionuclides in the decay
chain of uranium-238 are a common example.

•

What pathways for fetal and multi-generational exposure have been understudied or even ignored?

A few examples related to nuclear weapons testing will illustrate some of
the issues. Both pre-pregnancy exposure and intakes during pregnancy can
result in fetal radionuclide burdens. Many women throughout the world,
particularly in areas of high fallout during atmospheric weapons testing,had significant intakes of radionuclides. People who lived downwind fromthe Trinity test had direct inhalation doses. They also collected rainwater71

from their roofs in barrels and used it for drinking and cooking. This was,of course, typical of many areas in the world during atmospheric testing.
They were also affected by various pathways due to fallout depositing onlaundry hung out to dry. Collection of drinking water and outdoor laundry
drying are frequently mentioned by the affected public in matters of exposure; yet, they have often not been given their due.
Nor are the problems limited to the immediate vicinity of the test sites.
For instance, the 1954 CASTLE test series in the Marshall Islands created significant cumulative fallout thousands of miles from the Enewetak test location.91 The issue of zinc-65 exposure may be especially important, all the moresince it has not been covered in much-used official scientific literature on fallout.92 Moreover, as shows in Table VI-1 above, the fetal concentration of zinc65 is twice as large as that in the mother. According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, “Children need zinc to grow and develop. Zinc is amineral that is important for immune function, wound healing, and the sensesof smell and taste.”93 Radioactive zinc will behave identically in the body to the
non-radioactive zinc that all people, and especially children need. Thus, it can
impair all the functions that zinc is responsible for promoting. Specifically, impairment of immune system development can set the stage for a variety ofhealth vulnerabilities later in life.
Finally, a large, though uncertain fraction of pregnancies, end in miscarriages. One estimate indicates that 40% to 50% of all pregnancies may be“occult” miscarriages – that is miscarriages that are not clinically recognized and often not even recognized by the women themselves. 94 A largepart of the reason is that many of these occult miscarriages occur in the firstfew weeks after fertilization. The fraction of these that might be related toenvironmental causes or to combinations of environmental and genetic
91

List 1955; see the map on p. 20 (pdf p. 26). Hot spots are indicated as far as Mexico City to the east of
the Marshall Islands and Colombo, Sri Lanka to the west.
92
Franke 2002
93
CDC 2022
94
Calculated from Rice 2018, Figure 3. The percentage varies according to the age of the woman.

72causes is unknown. Given the ubiquity of environmental pollution, both
radioactive and non-radioactive, an assessment of the environmental contribution to failed pregnancies should be a high priority along with otherissues of reproductive justice.

73

7
Tritium Standards in Water
Remediation of research deficiencies and gaps, including those identified
above, is going to take time. The potential for teratogenic damage, theestablished conclusion that there is no threshold for central nervous system teratogenic effects, and at least plausible arguments that there is nothreshold for other teratogenic impacts point to the necessity and urgency of interim protective measures as research clarifies the specificharms and risk parameters for various endpoints, including the potential
harms in the first trimester of pregnancies (two trimesters in the case of
the central nervous system).
In particular, a tightening of drinking water standards is urgently
needed, especially for tritium, which is the most common routine radiological pollutant that is routinely emitted and discharged in larger quantities
from commercial nuclear facilities than any other pollutant. For the reasons
discussed below, a tightening of the drinking water standard to 400 picocuries per liter (from the current 20,000 picocuries per liter95) would bemuch more protective; it is all the more needed in view of the long neglectof protection of pregnant women and the embryo and fetus.
There is already a substantial official history pointing to the need totighten drinking water standards for tritium because tritium in drinking
presents risks to very large populations. For instance, the specific publichealth criterion used by the official Ontario Drinking Water Advisory
Council, was a lifetime fatal cancer risk of one in a million people for tritium-contaminated drinking water; tritium is emitted from the province’s
95

40 CFR 141 (2013)74

heavy water-moderated nuclear power plants. The recommended limit was
20 Bq/liter (540 picocuries/liter).96 The Department of Energy remediation
guideline for tritium in runoff water during the decommissioning of its
Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado provides another example where the samerisk criterion was used and the limit was set at 500 picocuries per liter,
which is 40 times more stringent than the U.S. drinking water standard.97
The concern in that case was the nearby drinking water reservoir that supplies the Denver area.
The Ontario and Colorado calculations were done using somewhat
dated dose conversion factors to calculate the lifetime risk. The updated
values in Federal Guidance Report 13 show that the tritium concentration
limit corresponding to the same a one-in-a-million life time fatal cancer
risk should be 400 picocuries/liter, whence the recommendation. The Stateof California has a drinking water guideline of 400 picocuries per liter (15Bq/L) of tritium.
While tritium is the most common man-made pollutant, it is not the
only one. The same criterion should also apply to other man-made radionuclides that cross the placenta. My calculations for drinking water limits
at the one-in a million risk level based on Federal Guidance Report 13 arereproduced below in Table 1; they were presented to the New Mexico Water
Quality Commission.
Table 1: Recommended drinking water standards forcertain man-made radionuclides in pCi/L (or Bq/L)

Radionuclide

pCi/L

Bq/L

Americium-241

0.19

0.007

Cesium-137

0.64

0.024

96

The Advisory Council’s recommendation was rejected in favor of a much more lax standard (7,000Bq/L) even though the Council noted that the province’s power plants could meet the 20 Bq/L limit ifthey did not exceed their discharge limit – ODWAC 2009, p. 5.
97
Canada uses metric units; Ontario’s advisory level was 20 becquerels/liter (Bq/L), which is the roundedvalue corresponding to the one-in-a-million life time risk; it is equal to 540 picocuries per liter)75

Plutonium239/240

0.15

0.006

Strontium-90

0.35

0.013

Tritium

400

15

Source: Witness Statement of Arjun Makhijani to the New Mexico Water Quality Commission on
behalf of Amigos Bravos, August 27, 2009, p. 8. The statement and the transcript of the oral testimony
are at https://ieer.org/resource/press-releases/mexico-strengthens-limits-public/

The U.S. drinking water standard applies only to public water systems. As
a result, private wells are exempt, sparing them the expense of monitoringand other compliance-related expenses. However, this also allows nuclear
power and weapons plants to emit and discharge tritiated water that canadversely impact private water supply. It is important to consider interim
restrictions on such emissions and discharges to protect drinking water
sources not covered by the EPA regulations to the equivalent standard of
400 picocuries per liter (15 Bq/L). Further, in the US and elsewhere there
are groundwater protection standards to ensure the continuing quality ofaquifers irrespective of whether water is drawn by public or private users.
This places a requirement on polluters not to pollute aquifers irrespectiveof actual or potential use.

76

8Concluding Reflections
There is a very wide range of possible harms from internal radiation, especially of radiation that deposits all its energy in a single cell, such as the beta
particles emitted by tritium decay and alpha particles, such as those emitted
by several plutonium isotopes, including plutonium-238 and plutonium239, the three natural isotopes of uranium, U-234, U-235, and U-238, andthe man-made uranium isotope, U-233
Three broad categories of harm especially deserve more attention;
while research is done to improve knowledge, precautionary action andstandards are needed to protect human health:
1. Teratogenic impacts, especially in the first trimesterof pregnancy, including early failed pregnancies, central nervous system harms, and organ malformations.
In this context, there is ample evidence to revisit theuse of the concept of “relative biological effectiveness”
of internal radiation compared to external gamma radiation. Non-cancer impacts, such as sister chromatid
exchange frequency and bystander effects need to beresearched, along with the variety of post-natal healthimpacts they may have.
2. Mitochondrial impacts, including mitochondrial
DNA (mtDNA) mutations, caused when intra-cellular radiation results in the creation of excess reactive
oxygen species (ROS) in the cytoplasm. There is abroad category of adverse health impacts that may be77

associated with excess ROS. For instance, mtDNA
mutations in ova may result in multigenerationalharms, since mtDNA is inherited exclusively from themother. As another example, disruption of mitochondrial functions could result in a broad array of adverse
impacts because they compromise the functioning of
intra-cellular metabolism. As discussed in this book,mitochondria are the core of the energy system of cells
and, hence, of the body. Further, since all plants, fungi,
and animals have the same mitochondrial metabolic
system, radionuclides like tritium that disrupt theirfunctioning could also cause a broad array of ecologicalharms. This aspect of research is especially importantin relation to tritium because it is the most ubiquitousroutine pollutant associated with both nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
3. Potential synergistic impacts of internal radiationand non-radioactive pollutants. Such impacts havebeen difficult to estimate for a variety of reasons, including the different metrics used to assess dose andthe way those metrics translate into standards forhealth and environmental protection. For radiation
the basic metric has been energy deposited per unitmass. In turn, that metric is used to set limits for radionuclides in the environment, including drinking
water, or for remediation of contaminated sites. For
instance, the limit for tritium in drinking water is
20,000 picocuries per liter; it is derived from dose –energy deposited per unit mass; it implies, a standard
assumption about drinking water consumption.
Other limits are set directly for dose. For instance,78

dose from man-made beta-emitters other than strontium-90 and tritium, is set at 4 millirem per year to thewhole body or any organ. The limit for drinking watercontamination is derived from that dose limit.98 Thisapproach cannot be used for non-radioactive toxic materials, since their mechanism of toxicity is not energy
deposition in the body; rather they interact chemically,and hence biologically, with the body in a variety ofways. Even the units are incommensurate. Rather thanenergy deposited, drinking water concentration limits
for organic toxic chemicals and heavy metals are expressed in terms of mass per unit volume (usually milligrams per liter).99 The radiation and chemical metrics
are incommensurate so far as assessing harms to healthand ecosystems is concerned. However, to the extent
that the avenue of harm is via creation of excess ROS,
whether by chemical toxicants or radionuclides, there
is a clear avenue for the study and assessment of the
combined adverse impacts of radiation and chemical
exposures, including especially (but not only) internalradiation exposure.
This book has focused on tritium for the reasons described in the preface
and Chapter 1. Other beta emitters can and should also be examined in thesame manner. Among the most important include carbon-14, strontium90, cesium-137, and radioisotopes of iodine. The disproportionate damage

98

U.S. drinking water standards are specified at 40 CFR 141. Radionuclide standards are at 40 CFR
141.66.
99
40 CFR 141.50 for organic chemicals and 40 CFR 141.51 for heavy metals.

79

that alpha radiation causes has long been recognized but usually in the context of cancer risk is dealt with by applying a relative biological effectivenessfactor of 20 – a value that is not applicable to a variety of other situations.
People who have suffered the impacts of radioactive pollution, notably,
but not only, indigenous peoples, have long complained of teratogenic impacts during pregnancy and of multi-generational impacts. The widespread
impacts due to uranium mining in many countries, including countries thathave neither nuclear weapons or power, and on indigenous lands of countries that have one or both, are exemplary of the problem. This explorationof tritium and its impacts points to the need for a broader and much more
serious consideration of the health harm from internal exposure to radionuclides. This should extend well beyond the usual consideration of nuclear
DNA mutations to include mitochondrial DNA and excess reactive oxygen
species impacts on cellular metabolism. Finally, given that the umbilicalcords of newborns have been found to have over 200 chemicals in them, 100
the establishment of precautionary standards for chemicals and for chemicals and radiation combined is a critical and urgent matter for public andenvironmental health.

100

EWG 2005

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93Appendix A:
Radioactive rain

As noted in Chapter 3, nuclear power plants routinely discharge tritiatedwater and emit tritiated water vapor through their stacks. IEER commissioned a special modeling of tritium releases during one year from a single
nuclear power plant, the Braidwood plant in Illinois. This plant was chosen
for a few reasons:•

It is a pressurized water reactor, the most common typeof power reactor in the world and in the United States.

•

Tritium leaks at the plant led to serious controversies
around the plant’s health and environmental impacts.

•

A physician and engineer, Dr. Sauer, who lived in thearea and whose daughter contracted brain cancer compiled cancer data in the environs of the plant. While notan epidemiological study, the data are suggestive.

•

Despite the controversies, no significant actions forrequiring monitoring of the impact of radioactive
precipitation on private wells, drinking water and locally produced food has been required.

We noted in Chapter 7 it was reasonable to not require owners of private
wells to have their water tested for pollutants in the same manner as required for public drinking water systems. But this has created a very big
loophole that allows the industrial neighbors, including nuclear power
plants, of rural residents to emit pollutants like tritium that impact their94

drinking water. This is an example of a serious environmental protection
failure.
Even Milton Friedman, an eminent apostle of the free market and limited government, noted that the freedom of individuals should be limited
in a variety of ways. He noted this in the context of determining the role ofgovernment. Among other things he noted that “one man’s freedom tomurder his neighbor must be sacrificed to preserve the freedom of the otherman to live.” In the same general context, he also opined that people should
not be free to pollute the water flowing through their property because that
action “in effect forc[es] others to exchange good water for bad” involuntarily. Government action of was needed when people are in situations
where “it is not feasible for them, acting individually, to avoid the exchangeor to enforce appropriate compensation.”101 This precisely describes the situation in which neighbors of NRC licensees (and many other industries)
find themselves. It is therefore the responsibility of the EPA and the NRC,
even in a minimalist interpretation of the appropriate role of government,
to devise appropriate remedies, including preventing the industries fromputting people in the position of exchanging good water for bad.
The rest of this Appendix was prepared by the consulting firm of Matthias Rau in Germany from modeling done for the year 2015 using data
filed by Exelon, the owner of the Braidwood plant, with the Nuclear regulatory Commission.

101

Friedman 1962 Chapter 2.

95

Appendix B

97

Braidwood Illinois Tritium Release

Client:Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.
Inst. for Energy and Env. Research
Takoma Park
Maryland 20913
P.O. Box 5324

Contractor:

Ingenieurbüro Rau
Bottwarbahnstraße 4D-74081 Heilbronn

In collaboration with: Dr. Winkler
Ingenieurbüro Winkler
Wilhelm-Gülpen-Straße 29
D-52146 Würselen

Heilbronn, September 09, 2020

INGENIEURBÜRO RAU

Directory
1

Task ................................................................................................................................ 1

2

Methodology .................................................................................................................. 1

3

Model description and required data ........................................................................... 1
3.1

Model description ................................................................................................... 1

3.2

Model options for the calculations........................................................................... 2
3.2.1 Study Area .................................................................................................. 2
3.2.2 Role of Topography..................................................................................... 2
3.2.3 Building Effects, Plume Rise and Effective Release Height ......................... 2

3.3
3.4

Emission data ......................................................................................................... 3
Meteorological Data................................................................................................ 6
3.4.1 Meteorological data basis............................................................................ 6
3.4.2 Preparation of NCDC data .......................................................................... 7
3.4.3 Spatial representativeness .......................................................................... 8

4

5

Results from Dispersion Calculation ......................................................................... 11
4.1

Mean Tritium Contamination in the Surrounding Area .......................................... 11

4.2

Daily Impact of Tritium at some Locations ............................................................ 11

4.3

Tritium activity in rainwater ................................................................................... 13

Reference ..................................................................................................................... 23

Appendix 1

Two-dimensional contamination of Tritium ................................................... 24

Appendix 2

Daily Impact of Tritium at four assessment points ........................................ 44

Appendix 3

Tritium activity in rainwater at four assessment points .................................. 50

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Index of Figures
Figure 1:

approximate spatial distribution of the wind roses of the six stations generated
from the 2015 measurement data. .......................................................................................9

Figure 2:compiled measurement data of Pontiac station for the year 2015 in the form of awind rose and as frequency distributions. ..........................................................................10

Figure 3:

Precipitation data of Pontiac station for the year 2015 in the form of a
precipitation rose and a frequency distribution of precipitation intensity. ..........................10

Figure 4:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 1..................................................................24

Figure 5:Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 2. .................................................................24

Figure 6:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 3. .................................................................25

Figure 7:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 4. .................................................................25

Figure 8:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 1. ..........................26

Figure 9:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 2. ..........................26

Figure 10:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 3. ..........................27

Figure 11:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 4. ..........................27

Figure 12:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 1. ...........................................................28

Figure 13:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 2. ...........................................................28

Figure 14:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 3. ...........................................................29

Figure 15:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 4. ...........................................................29

Figure 16:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 1…4. ..............30

Figure 17:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 2. ....................30

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Figure 18:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 3. ....................31

Figure 19:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 4. ....................31

Figure 20:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 1. .....................................................32

Figure 21:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 2. .....................................................32

Figure 22:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 3. .....................................................33

Figure 23:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 4. .....................................................33

Figure 24:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 1. ..............34

Figure 25:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 2. ..............34

Figure 26:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 3. ..............35

Figure 27:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 4. ..............35

Figure 28:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 1. ..........................................................36

Figure 29:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 2. ..........................................................36

Figure 30:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 3. ..........................................................37

Figure 31:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 4. ..........................................................37

Figure 32:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 1. ...................38

Figure 33:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 2. ...................38

Figure 34:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 3. ...................39

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Figure 35:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 4. ...................39

Figure 36:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 1. .......................................................40

Figure 37:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 2. .......................................................40

Figure 38:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 3. .......................................................41

Figure 39:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 4. .......................................................41

Figure 40:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 1. .................42

Figure 41:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 2. .................42

Figure 42:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 3. .................43

Figure 43:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contaminationof Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 4. .................43

Figure 44:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for January at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................44

Figure 45:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for February at the four
examination points. ............................................................................................................44

Figure 46:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for March at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................45

Figure 47:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for April at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................45

Figure 48:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for May at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................46

Figure 49:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for June at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................46

Figure 50:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for July at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................47

Figure 51:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for August at the four examination
points 47

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Figure 52:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for September at the four
examination points. ............................................................................................................48

Figure 53:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for October at the four examination
points. .................................................................................................................................48

Figure 54:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for November at the four
examination points. ............................................................................................................49

Figure 55:

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for December at the four
examination points. ............................................................................................................49

Figure 56:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P1 per month ........................................50

Figure 57:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P2 per month ........................................50

Figure 58:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P3 per month ........................................51

Figure 59:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P4 per month ........................................51

Index of Tables
Table 1:Gaseous continuous and batch release of Tritium for 2017 ................................................3

Table 2:

Some characteristic data of gaseous batch releases of Tritium for 2017 ............................4

Table 3:

Continuous release rates and mean release rate during batch mode of gaseous
Tritium for 2017 ....................................................................................................................5

Table 4:

Measuring stations in the Braidwood regional area which were tested for theirsuitability and representativeness for the Braidwood site ....................................................6

Table 5:Assignment of the measured five cloud cover classes to the eight classes used
for the simulations ................................................................................................................8

Table 6:

Number of rain hours at four assessment points (P1 to P4) per quarter and intotal.................................................................................................................................13

Table 7:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P1 on days with precipitation ................14

Table 8:Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P2 on days with precipitation ................15

Table 9:Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P3 on days with precipitation ................17

Table 10:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P4 on days with precipitation ................19

Table 11:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P1 per month ........................................21

Table 12:Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P2 per month ........................................21

Table 13:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P3 per month ........................................22

Table 14:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P4 per month ........................................22

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1 TaskSubject of the investigation is the dispersion of tritium, its washing out with rain and the resulting
ground contamination caused by the exhaust air of the nuclear power plant in Braidwood, Illinois.
The engineering office M. Rau was commissioned by the Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research, Maryland, with this study.

2 Methodology
The dispersion calculations will be carried out with the German dispersion model ARTM [1](Lagrangian dispersion model) used for licensing and regulatory purposes concerning long term
releases caused by normal operation of nuclear installations.
The model calculates dispersion, dry and wet deposition of gaseous releases from nuclear
installations. The results are two-dimensional fields of concentration and contamination and timeseries of concentration and contamination for given points.
As input, the model requires a meteorological time series and mean release values for the
relevant period.
This study examines in special the gaseous release of tritium and the resulting contamination by
precipitation in the area surrounding the Braidwood nuclear power plant.
Results are calculated on the basis of mean release rates for 2017 for the four quarters and theyear as a whole, differentiated for continuous and discontinuous releases.

3 Model description and required data
3.1 Model description
The numerical calculation of ground contamination by wash out for tritium will be carried out withthe model-package ARTM, an adoption of the well-known AUSTAL2000-model for modellingradionuclide transport, deposition and radionuclide doses. AUSTAL2000 is in compliance with theGerman Guidance TI Air. The core of AUSTAL2000 as well as ARTM is a Lagrangian particle
model [1].
The Lagrangian particle model differs fundamentally from the majority of the establishednumerical modelling techniques which are founded on the computed solution of the advectiondiffusion equation. This model tracks point-like particles representing a trace species on their paththrough the atmosphere. The particles travel with the mean wind and are additionally subjectedto the influence of turbulence. The effect of the turbulence is modelled by adding an additionalrandom velocity to the mean motion for the particle. This random velocity, which is derived froma Markov process, is a function of the turbulence intensity and is different for each particle. The
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concentration distribution is determined by counting the particles in given sampling volumes andexpressed as mean values over the volume and time intervals. The main advantages of the
Lagrangian particle model are that the model concept largely reflects the natural phenomena
involved in turbulent diffusion. It can be applied to any source geometry desired for any temporal
behaviour of a spatially variable source. Required meteorological input information includes thefields of the mean wind components, the wind fluctuations and the diffusion coefficients which
can be generated by meteorological pre-processors. For time-dependent calculations, the input
parameters must be made available as a time series of fields. Furthermore, emission data will be
required. The model output is a time sequence of the spatial distribution of the concentration of
the emitted species and its transformation products. Based on the calculated time sequencesmean values and momentary values for different time periods can be.
The ARTM-model has additional functions compared to AUSTAL2000 as e.g.


Determination of the radiological dose caused by cloud radiation (gamma submersion),

Calculation of ground contamination caused by wet deposition,

Considering radioactive decay during dispersion.

3.2 Model options for the calculations
The following options have been used for the calculations:3.2.1 Study Area
The calculations were done for a terrain (study area) of about 9,6 x 9,6 km² with a nested gridwith fine resolution near the plant and a rough resolution in greater distances. The finest grid has
an extension of 1.2 x 1.2 km² and a resolution of 10 x 10 m². This is followed by grids of 2.4 x 2.4
km² and 20 x 20 m², 4.8 x 4.8 km² and 40 x 40 m², and finally the coarsest grid of 9.6 x 9.6 km²
and 80 x 80 m². Centre of the calculation area is the stack of the NPP Braidwood.
3.2.2 Role of Topography
The surrounding area of the NPP is nearly flat. Topography plays a minor role and is therefore
not taken into account for the dispersion calculations.
3.2.3 Building Effects, Plume Rise and Effective Release Height
Larger buildings of the power plant can significantly influence the dispersion of tritium near thesource. On the one hand, they can lead to a reduction in the effective release height and, on theother hand, they can reduce the concentration due to increased turbulence in the vicinity of thebuilding and the resulting greater amount of mixing. These effects decrease with increasing
distance from the buildings and source.
In the present study, the 3D wind field near the source is not explicitly modeled for the following
reasons:
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INGENIEURBÜRO RAUThe four locations of particular interest are already 500 m or 1 km away from the source (seeThe objective of the study is the contamination of the ground with tritum due to its washingchapter 4.2).
out by rain. For the calculation of the washout rate an integration over the entire height of the
propagation plume is carried out. Therefore the effective height of the release is less important
than for the calculation of the concentration near the ground.
However, the influence of the buildings on the release height cannot be completely excluded. In
addition, at higher wind speeds downwash can lead to a lower effective release height. Therefore,
an effective release height of 33 m is assumed, which is half of the stack height. This is a rather
conservative estimate for the present situation.
A possible increase of the effective source height by plume rise is not considered.

3.3 Emission data
Emission data are taken from:
Braidwood Nuclear Power Station, Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report for 2017, Unit 1,
2 and ISFSI (Docket Numbers 50-456, 50-457 and 72-73).
With regard to emissions, a distinction must be made between continuous releases and releases
in batch operation. Batch operation only occurs at certain times. The values of the gaseous tritium
releases per quarter and the annual sum provided by the licensee with regard to the continuous
releases and the releases in batch operation are given in Table 1.
Table 1:Gaseous continuous and batch release of Tritium for 2017
1st Qtr2nd Qtr

3rd Qtr

4th Qtr

Year

Continuous release in Ci

26,9

140

45,3

23,6

235,8

Batch release in Ci

1,86

3,56

3,91

37

46,33

Total release in Ci

28,8

144

49,2

60,6

282,6

Portion Batch/Total in %

6,5

2,5

8,0

61,1

16,4

Relation Batch/Continuous in %

6,9

2,5

8,6

156,8

19,7

In addition to the above data, the proportion of batch releases to total releases and the ratio ofbatch releases to continuous releases are given. The portion of batch releases to total releases
during the first three quarters is between 2.5 % and 8 %. In the fourth quarter, however, their
portion is 61.6% and more than 1.5 times higher than the continuous releases. The absolute levelof releases is highest in the second quarter and thus 2.5 to 5 times higher than in the other
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quarters. The proportion of releases in this quarter makes up about 50% of the total year's
releases.
Releases in batch mode only occur at certain times, and it is not known when the individual
periods occur or how long they continue. The data that the licensee provides for the batch
operations are: The number of batch releases, their total duration and the durations of the shortest
and the longest period.
The data are given in Table 2.
Table 2:

Some characteristic data of gaseous batch releases of Tritium for 2017

Total Number of Batch Releases
Total Time Period for Batch Releases
in minutes
Maximum Time Period for a Batch
Release in minutes
Average Time Period for a Batch
Release in minutes
Minimum Time Period for a Batch
Release in minutes

1st Qtr2nd Qtr

3rd Qtr

4th Qtr

Year

52

62

49

70

233

8410

37800

13800

37400

97410

1510

12800

2300

2190

12800

162

610

282

534

418

19

22

23

22

19

The model used for the dispersion calculations expects as input beside a meteorological timeseries (see next chapter) a release rate (in Bq/s) averaged over the studied period. This approachcorresponds to the situation prevalent in Germany where the gaseous releases of a nuclear plant
are usually uniform. The associated regulations specify the conditions under which a release may
be regarded as uniform. If there is no uniform release in an individual case, either a conservative
result is estimated with the aid of factors or individual analyses are performed. In the case of
discontinuous releases, it would in principle also be possible to apply the dispersion model with atime-dependent release series (corresponding to the time-dependent meteorological time series).
For such an approach, however, the exact course of the release must be known.
In the case of the nuclear power plant in Braidwood, there is a continuous release, which can beassumed to be uniform and discontinuous releases in batch mode. Only the frequency, the total
duration and the total release are known about the batch releases, but not when the individual
releases occur and how long they continue in individual cases.

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In this case, the following approach is applied in order to perform dispersion calculations andobtain reliable results:

It is assumed that the batch release rate is the same for all batch releases (mean release ratein batch mode).

This release rate results from the total emissions of all batch releases in relation to the total
duration of all batch releases.

Thus, a release rate due to continuous release and a release rate due to batch releases are
obtained for the dispersion calculation.

With these prerequisites, the data specified in the last two lines of Table 3 results. The tablecontains also the relevant data for release rates: The total values of continuous releases, of
releases in batch mode, of the quarterly hours and the duration of batch modes.
Table 3:

Continuous release rates and mean release rate during batch mode of gaseous
Tritium for 2017
1st Qtr2nd Qtr

3rd Qtr

4th Qtr

Year

Continuous release in Ci

26,9

140,0

45,3

23,6

235,8

Batch release in Ci

1,86

3,56

3,91

37,00

46,3

Total time of period in hour

2160

2184

2208

2208

8760

Total time batch releases in hour

140

630

230

623

1624

Continuous release rate in nCi/s

3459

17806

5699

2969

7477

Mean release rate in batch mode in nCi/s

3686

1570

4722

16488

7927

Because the batch releases cannot be allocated to a certain time period, the specified release
rate is assumed for all periods of batch mode. On the basis of these data, the resulting tritium
input with the rainwater can be calculated caused by the emissions of the power plant. The
following must be noted:

At which location at a certain time how many tritium is deposited with the rain depends not
only on the release rate but also on the wind direction and rain intensity.



The impact of tritium with rainwater due to the continuous releases is uniform at all times. In
this sense, the calculated values represent the actual contamination by the continuous
emissions.

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INGENIEURBÜRO RAUThe total impact of tritium with rainwater due to discontinuous releases is calculated too high,since the release rate is used for the entire period and therefore the total release applied forthe calculation is higher than the actual one. The smaller the batch periods and the batch
releases, the greater the overestimation.

3.4 Meteorological Data
The quality of dispersion calculations strongly depends on the quality of the dispersion model
used and the meteorological input parameters. Therefore, the analysis of meteorological data
representative for the site is very important for fixing the model options for the calculations. The
required parameters are wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric stability, mixing layer heights,
temperature and precipitation. These parameters should be available at the site or near the site
in high temporal resolution (1-h-values) for a desired time period. The existence of arepresentative meteorological time series at the site is a precondition for the calculation of longterm (yearly averaged) as well as short-term (max. daily, max. hourly) pollution concentrations
and deposition.
3.4.1 Meteorological data basis
The dispersion calculations at the Braidwood site (41.264°N, 88.218°W) are to be carried out with
the ARTM model for the year 2015. The dispersion model requires a seasonal series with hourly
values of wind speed, wind direction, precipitation rate and dispersion class according to Klug /Manier. The determination of the dispersion class according to [2] depends on the following input
variables:date and time

location coordinates for determining the times of sunrise and sunsetroughness length z0 at sitewind speedcloud coverage in eighths

type of coverage, if applicable

No spatially representative measurement data for the model area are available from theimmediate vicinity of the site. However, at the National Climatic Data Center at
gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/maps/ncei/cdo/hourly hourly observation data of various measurement
networks are available for download. Data from the following measuring stations in the Braidwood
regional area were tested for their suitability and representativeness for the Braidwood site:
Table 4:

Measuring stations in the Braidwood regional area which were tested for theirsuitability and representativeness for the Braidwood site

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LocationMors Muni-J.R.
Greater Kankakee Airport
Lansing Municipal AP
Pontiac Municipal Airport
Joliet Regional Airport
Lewis University Airport

NCDC

Coordinate

DistancecodesDirection

04867

88.419°W~25 km41.425°N

NW

87.846°W~35 km41.121°N

ESE

87.532° W~65 km41.540 N

NE

88.625° W~51 km

40.924° N

SW

88.167° W~26 km41.500° N

N

88.085° W~39 km41.604° N

NNE

04880
04879
04889
14834
04831

Wind

Rain

Cloud
Cover

X

-

(-)

X

X

(-)

X

X

(-)

X

X

(-)

X

X

(-)

X

X

(-)

There are no hourly precipitation rates at the Mors Muni site. The degree of coverage at all
stations is indicated in only five classes of eighths (0, 1-2, 3-4, 5-7 and 8).
3.4.2 Preparation of NCDC data
The times of the NCDC data are related to UTC (coordinated universal time). For ARTM a timeseries was generated for the period Jan 01, 2015 00:00 to Dec 31, 2015 23:00 Chicago time (UTC
- 6 hours). The time specifications in the compiled time series refer to the beginning of the hourintervals.
The averaging period of the measured wind data is unknown. However, the wind measurements
are not available as hourly averages. All measurement data with a quality code of 0, 1, 4, 5 or 9
were accepted, all other data discarded. Calms and variable wind directions were coded
according to the AKTERM definition [3].
From the precipitation data, measurements with a condition code 1 were initially rejected as faulty.
The remaining precipitation data are available in mm, related to different time intervals. They were
harmonized in successive hourly values (mm/h).
Data on cloud cover were only used for quality codes of 0, 1, 4, 5 or 9, otherwise marked as notdefined. The five classes were converted to eighths according to the following table:

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Table 5:Assignment of the measured five cloud cover classes to the eight classes used forthe simulations

measured (eighths)

compiled (eighths)

0

0

1-2

2

3-4

4

5-7

6

8

8

The sunrise and sunset times according to [2] were calculated for each day from the location
coordinates. Together with wind speed and degree of coverage, the hourly dispersion categories
were determined according to Klug/Manier.
3.4.3 Spatial representativeness
Figure 1 shows the approximate spatial distribution of the wind roses of the six stations generated
from the 2015 measurement data. All wind roses show large frequencies of wind directions fromthe third quadrant between south and west and a secondary maximum from northeastern
directions. The northeast maximum is more pronounced the closer you get to Lake Michigan. It
will therefore be associated with sea winds, which form during sunny weather conditions and canreach up to 100 km inland in the course of the day. The opposite nocturnal land breeze is usuallyless pronounced. It does not stand out from the frequent southwesterly winds.
Braidwood is about 75 km from Lake Michigan. Similar to the Mors Muni station, which is aboutat the same distance, the land-sea wind will play a much weaker role here. The more pronounced
sea wind at the stations Lansing, Lewis and Joliet, as well as the isolated NE maximum at Greater
Kankakee seem less characteristic for Braidwood.
Mors Muni, Pontiac, and Greater Kankakee all show a wide distribution of frequent winds fromsouth to west. However, the frequencies within this quadrant are very irregularly distributed at
Mors Muni and show several singularities in 10° sectors. It cannot be ruled out that local
influences may be responsible for this.
Pontiac, on the other hand, shows a more even distribution of wind directions in the third quadrant
than Mors Muni and a less pronounced secondary maximum from the northeast. Although thestation is, except for Lansing, furthermost from Braidwood (50 km distance), the wind conditions
measured there seem to be most representative for the conditions around Braidwood. The
dispersion calculations are therefore carried out with the processed measurement data of Pontiac.
Figure 1 shows the compiled measurement data of Pontiac station for the year 2015 in the formof a wind rose and as frequency distributions over nine wind speed classes and six dispersion
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INGENIEURBÜRO RAU

classes respectively. A roughness length of 0.10 m and an anemometer height of 10 m wereassumed for the compilation of the measurement data.
The annual average wind speed is 4.2 m/s. Therefore, the neutral dispersion class III/1
predominates with about 44% of the annual hours. Stable stratification conditions (classes I andII) are existent in almost ⅓ of the annual hours. Neutral to unstable conditions exist in ¼ of theannual hours.

Figure 1:

approximate spatial distribution of the wind roses of the six stations generated
from the 2015 measurement data.

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INGENIEURBÜRO RAU

Figure 2:compiled measurement data of Pontiac station for the year 2015 in the form of awind rose and as frequency distributions.

Figure 3:

Precipitation data of Pontiac station for the year 2015 in the form of a precipitationrose and a frequency distribution of precipitation intensity.

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4 Results from Dispersion Calculation
4.1 Mean Tritium Contamination in the Surrounding Area
The tritium contamination by precipitation due to the releases of the Braidwood nuclear power
station in 2017 is shown. Results are presented for the four quarters as well as the total year andfor the continuous release only as well as for the sum of continuous release and batch release.
In Figure 4 to Figure 43 of the appendix 1 the two-dimensional tritium contamination by
precipitation due to the releases of the Braidwood power plant in 2017 is presented. The results
are shown for each of the four calculation grids for the four quarters and the full year, forcontinuous release only, and for continuous release and batch release. This results in a total of
40 graphs. The legend is chosen in such a way that the entire value range of a calculation field iscovered as far as possible. The values shown are the contamination in Ci/m².
Four assessment points (P1 to P4) are still marked in the graphics. These are located as follows
in relation to the source:P1: 500 m southeast of the source: 135°

P2: 1 km north of the source: 0°



P3: 1 km north-northwest of the source: 330° and

P4: 1 km north-northeast of the source: 30°.

When interpreting the results, the following should be noted:


As far as continuous operation is concerned, the results should be considered as realistic.



As far as the sum of continuous and batch release is concerned, there is an overestimationof the actual values as previously stated.

At a single location, the actual impact is between zero (if the location for all actual batch
releases was never affected due to wind direction and rain) and the calculated value (if thelocation for all actual batch releases was always affected due to wind direction and rain).

4.2 Daily Impact of Tritium at some Locations
Figure 44 to Figure 55 of the appendix 2 shows the maximum daily mean values to be expected
for each month at the four assessment points. The daily average exposure is shown as a monthly
time series for the sum of continuous and batch release.
The results are to be interpreted as follows:At a single location and on a specific day, the calculated values correspond approximately tothe actual values if a batch release has occurred on that day and the assumed release rate

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INGENIEURBÜRO RAU(mean value for all batch operations of the quarter) corresponds approximately to the realrate.
However, the exact release rates of the individual batch operations are not known. The actual
release rate of a batch mode can therefore be higher or lower than the assumed mean rate.
The calculated values can therefore be correspondingly lower or higher than the calculated
values.



If no batch mode was actually performed on the corresponding day, the calculated values are
too high by the portion of the assumed batch operation. The portion of batch mode operationcompared to the portion of continuous emissions can be seen in Table 3-3. They areapproximately the same in the first and third quarters. In the second quarter, the portion ofbatch mode is less than 10% of the portion of continuous operation. In the fourth quarter, theportion of batch mode is 5.5 times higher than that of continuous mode.

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4.3 Tritium activity in rainwater
Until now, the contamination with tritium has been treated either as an integral value over a longer
period of time or as daily values. A more detailed analysis also allows to obtain information about
the activity of tritium in rainwater. The results of such an analysis depend on the regarded point
and will be carried out in the following for the four already investigated locations.
From the results of the dispersion calculation, the hours can be determined for a given location
during which a wet deposition with tritium occurred and consequently it rained at these locations.
The criterium for this is a calculated wet deposition greater than 0.
A first result of such an analysis is the number of hours (hours of rain) per quarter and per pointof interest as shown in Table 6. However, this analysis does not yet tell us how much precipitation
has fallen and how much the tritium concentration in the air and subsequently in the precipitation
is.
Table 6:

Number of rain hours at four assessment points (P1 to P4) per quarter and in total
P1

P2

P3

P4

1st Qtr

5

13

6

11

2nd Qtr

21

40

28

45

3rd Qtr

16

27

32

29

4th Qtr

2

40

52

27

Total

44

120

118

112

For each hour it is known how much precipitation was in that hour and how much tritium wasdeposited by wet deposition. Thus the activity of tritium in rainwater can be calculated. The
following tables Table 7 to Table 1 show the results of such an analysis for each of the four
points for the days on which at least one hour of precipitation occurred. In the tables areindicated: The date, the number of hours, the average tritium activity in the precipitation overthese hours, the maximum tritium activity in these hours and the amount of precipitation.

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Table 7:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P1 on days with precipitation
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1/3/2015

3

0.423

1.167

3.8

3/1/2015

2

1.558

2.117

3.1

4/19/2015

2

0.015

0.030

1.6

5/5/2015

1

0.002

0.002

1.3
4.8

5/8/2015

2

0.449

0.858

5/30/2015

4

0.425

1.291

6.1

6/7/2015

4

0.144

0.352

11.5

6/8/2015

1

1.125

1.125

2.8

6/11/2015

1

0.293

0.293

1

6/12/2015

1

0.004

0.004

2.8

6/13/2015

1

0.043

0.043

1.8

6/15/2015

2

0.033

0.062

5.6

6/25/2015

2

0.029

0.043

0.6

7/7/2015

1

0.036

0.036

1.5

7/9/2015

2

0.796

1.587

0.6

7/20/2015

1

0.091

0.091

7.4

7/29/2015

2

0.419

0.835

5.4

8/9/2015

3

1.319

3.692

8.2

8/18/2015

2

0.717

1.427

17

9/10/2015

1

0.002

0.002

9.1

9/11/2015

2

0.413

0.664

0.6

9/18/2015

2

0.144

0.222

8.4

11/22/2015

1

0.004

0.004

0.5

11/27/2015

1

0.022

0.022

1.5

Year

44

0.415

3.692

107

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Table 8:Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P2 on days with precipitation
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1/11/2015

1

0.002

0.002

0.3

1/31/2015

2

5.979

6.320

0.9

2/6/2015

1

1.975

1.975

0.5

2/7/2015

2

0.431

0.639

1.8

3/1/2015

2

0.599

0.949

3.3

3/3/2015

2

0.612

1.209

1.8

3/25/2015

1

0.090

0.090

2.3

3/29/2015

2

0.097

0.183

1.3

4/2/2015

1

0.030

0.030

1

4/9/2015

2

0.136

0.258

2.8

5/4/2015

2

0.103

0.161

3.8

5/5/2015

1

0.011

0.011

0.2

5/8/2015

3

0.938

2.576

0.9

5/10/2015

2

0.039

0.047

1.8

5/11/2015

2

0.974

1.915

0.6

5/14/2015

2

0.328

0.634

1.6

5/16/2015

2

0.432

0.810

0.6

5/26/2015

2

0.429

0.817

8.1

5/29/2015

2

0.142

0.278

5.1

6/7/2015

5

0.164

0.415

12

6/11/2015

2

0.070

0.076

0.8

6/12/2015

3

0.055

0.137

17.9

6/13/2015

2

0.055

0.069

0.6

6/15/2015

1

0.031

0.031

4.1

6/20/2015

2

0.015

0.016

3.3

6/24/2015

1

0.371

0.371

2.5

6/25/2015

3

0.979

2.886

3.8

7/6/2015

1

0.996

0.996

15.7

7/8/2015

3

0.796

2.194

5.9

7/11/2015

2

0.163

0.318

8.6

7/13/2015

1

0.036

0.036

5.3

7/16/2015

3

0.546

1.512

4.9

7/29/2015

2

0.071

0.098

2.1

8/9/2015

2

0.090

0.153

3.1

8/17/2015

3

0.701

1.709

8.2

8/18/2015

3

0.407

1.189

15.5

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Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]

9/10/2015

1

0.007

0.007

p [l/m²]
0.8

9/11/2015

3

0.713

1.292

1.6

9/18/2015

3

0.173

0.474

6.2

10/21/2015

1

0.001

0.001

0.3

10/23/2015

2

1.006

1.091

2

10/31/2015

4

1.112

2.302

4.3

11/5/2015

2

0.930

1.838

0.6

11/11/2015

3

0.092

0.266

9.2

11/16/2015

1

0.001

0.001

0.5

11/17/2015

1

0.008

0.008

2

11/22/2015

1

1.853

1.853

0.5

11/25/2015

1

0.969

0.969

0.5

11/26/2015

3

1.091

1.800

2.3

11/27/2015

3

0.626

1.402

6.4

11/30/2015

1

0.064

0.064

0.3

12/1/2015

1

0.100

0.100

0.5

12/13/2015

4

0.495

1.772

2.9

12/14/2015

2

0.561

1.001

1.5

12/20/2015

1

0.034

0.034

0.5

12/21/2015

4

0.773

1.540

3.1

12/23/2015

4

0.839

1.451

14.3

12/28/2015

1

0.016

0.016

0.3

Year

120

0.568

6.320

213.6

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Table 9:Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P3 on days with precipitation
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1/13/2015

1

0.244

0.244

1.3

3/1/2015

2

0.428

0.607

3.3

3/24/2015

1

0.005

0.005

1.8

3/25/2015

2

0.338

0.664

2.6

4/8/2015

2

0.382

0.760

5.9

5/4/2015

3

0.938

1.748

4.8

5/5/2015

1

0.894

0.894

0.2

5/10/2015

1

0.021

0.021

1.3

5/14/2015

4

0.206

0.798

3.1

5/16/2015

2

0.027

0.053

0.6

5/26/2015

1

0.015

0.015

1.3

6/7/2015

3

0.302

0.661

10.7

6/11/2015

2

0.806

1.380

2.8

6/12/2015

3

0.058

0.114

17.9

6/13/2015

1

0.001

0.001

0.3

6/15/2015

1

0.001

0.001

4.1

6/20/2015

1

0.036

0.036

2.5

6/24/2015

1

2.330

2.330

2.5

6/25/2015

2

0.526

0.990

1.5

7/6/2015

1

0.030

0.030

15.7

7/8/2015

5

0.281

0.864

6.7

7/11/2015

6

0.469

1.053

51.2

7/12/2015

1

0.002

0.002

7.6

7/13/2015

1

0.016

0.016

5.3

7/26/2015

1

0.004

0.004

2

7/29/2015

1

0.003

0.003

1.8

8/9/2015

5

0.037

0.089

9

8/17/2015

2

0.221

0.404

7.9

8/18/2015

4

0.986

2.194

30.8

9/10/2015

1

0.005

0.005

0.8

9/11/2015

3

0.349

0.552

1.6

9/18/2015

1

0.005

0.005

0.3

10/23/2015

3

0.311

0.496

2.1

10/28/2015

3

0.691

2.056

1.6

10/31/2015

7

0.268

0.887

10.2

11/11/2015

2

0.080

0.160

2.3

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Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]

11/16/2015

5

0.437

0.860

2.4

11/17/2015

11

0.165

0.506

24.6

11/18/2015

4

0.431

0.581

8.6

11/22/2015

1

0.018

0.018

0.5

11/30/2015

2

0.461

0.813

0.6

12/13/2015

8

0.325

0.811

9.2

12/16/2015

2

0.439

0.853

1

12/23/2015

2

0.252

0.501

8.2

12/26/2015

1

1.326

1.326

0.3

12/28/2015

1

0.005

0.005

0.3

Year

118

0.341

2.330

281.1

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p [l/m²]

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Table 10:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P4 on days with precipitation
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1/11/2015

1

0.816

0.816

0.3

1/31/2015

2

0.567

1.047

1.7

2/7/2015

3

0.343

1.019

2.3

3/1/2015

2

0.614

0.987

3.3

3/3/2015

2

0.156

0.210

2

3/29/2015

1

0.404

0.404

0.3

4/2/2015

2

0.212

0.327

1.8

4/9/2015

1

0.213

0.213

0.5

5/4/2015

1

0.155

0.155

2.5

5/8/2015

4

0.370

1.371

15.3

5/10/2015

2

0.438

0.829

1.8

5/11/2015

5

0.268

1.144

4.4

5/16/2015

1

0.048

0.048

0.3

5/25/2015

1

1.047

1.047

3

5/26/2015

1

0.033

0.033

7.6

5/29/2015

3

0.318

0.679

5.9

6/7/2015

8

0.263

1.452

27.7

6/11/2015

1

0.061

0.061

0.3

6/12/2015

2

0.584

1.164

15.3

6/13/2015

3

0.123

0.247

2.4

6/14/2015

1

0.036

0.036

1.3

6/15/2015

4

0.141

0.438

11

6/18/2015

1

1.110

1.110

2.5

6/20/2015

1

0.022

0.022

0.8

6/25/2015

3

1.062

1.718

4.8

7/6/2015

2

0.020

0.029

17.2

7/8/2015

1

0.024

0.024

0.5

7/13/2015

1

0.001

0.001

5.3

7/16/2015

2

0.163

0.300

4.1

7/20/2015

1

0.006

0.006

7.4

7/29/2015

2

8.072

16.1002.1

8/9/2015

2

0.073

0.121

3.1

8/17/2015

3

0.052

0.081

18.8

8/18/2015

2

0.314

0.622

5.1

9/8/2015

4

0.943

2.928

16.2

9/11/2015

3

0.673

1.163

1.6

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Date

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]

9/18/2015

5

0.456

1.719

p [l/m²]
24

9/19/2015

1

2.811

2.811

2.5

10/20/2015

1

1.110

1.110

0.8

10/21/2015

2

0.006

0.008

0.6

10/24/2015

1

0.001

0.001

1

10/28/2015

1

0.087

0.087

0.5
1.5

10/31/2015

1

0.002

0.002

11/6/2015

1

0.010

0.010

4.6

11/11/2015

3

0.008

0.016

10.7
0.5

11/22/2015

1

0.291

0.291

11/23/2015

1

1.162

1.162

0.3

11/27/2015

1

0.031

0.031

3.6

12/1/2015

2

0.827

1.441

1

12/14/2015

4

0.011

0.033

1.4

12/21/2015

7

0.034

0.175

7.7

Year

112

0.476

16.100261.5

The following tables Table 11 to Table 14 show an analogous analysis, however not related todays but to months. The contents of the table are the same as the previous ones: The month, thenumber of hours, the average tritium activity in precipitation over these hours, the maximum tritium
activity in these hours and the amount of precipitation.
In addition to these tables, the average Tritium activity, the maximum Tritium activity and thenumber of rainy hours per month for each assessment point are shown graphically in the figures
Figure 56 to Figure 59 in Appendix 3.

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Table 11:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P1 per month
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Month

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1

3

0.423

1.167

3.8

2

0

3

2

1.558

2.117

3.1

4

2

0.015

0.030

1.6

5

7

0.371

1.291

12.2

6

12

0.181

1.125

26.1

7

6

0.426

1.587

14.9

8

5

1.078

3.692

25.2

9

5

0.224

0.664

18.1

0.013

0.022

2

0.415

3.692

107

10

0

11

2

12

0

Year

44

Table 12:Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P2 per month
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Month

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1

3

3.987

6.320

1.2

2

3

0.946

1.975

2.3

3

7

0.387

1.209

8.7

4

3

0.101

0.258

3.8

5

18

0.429

2.576

22.7

6

19

0.242

2.886

45

7

12

0.460

2.194

42.5
26.8

8

8

0.438

1.709

9

7

0.381

1.292

8.6

10

7

0.923

2.302

6.6

11

16

0.636

1.853

22.3

12

17

0.571

1.772

23.1

Year

120

0.568

6.320

213.6

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Table 13:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P3 per month
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Month

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]p [l/m²]

1

1

0.244

0.244

1.3

2

0

3

5

0.307

0.664

7.7

4

2

0.382

0.760

5.9

5

12

0.385

1.748

11.3

6

14

0.437

2.330

42.3

7

16

0.267

1.053

90.3

8

11

0.415

2.194

47.7

9

5

0.211

0.552

2.7

10

13

0.375

2.056

13.9

11

25

0.273

0.860

39

12

14

0.379

1.326

19

Year

118

0.341

2.330

281.1

Table 14:

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P4 per month
Count:
Number of hours with precipitation
Mean:
Mean Tritium activity in nCi/l
Maximum: Maximum Tritium activity in nCi/lp:
Amount of precipitation in l/m²

Month

Count

Mean [nCi/l]Maximum [nCi/l]

1

3

0.650

1.047

p [l/m²]
2

2

3

0.343

1.019

2.3

3

5

0.389

0.987

5.6

4

3

0.212

0.327

2.3

5

18

0.329

1.371

40.8

6

24

0.359

1.718

66.1

7

9

1.838

16.100

36.6

8

7

0.133

0.622

27

9

13

0.837

2.928

44.3

10

6

0.202

1.110

4.4

11

7

0.217

1.162

19.7

12

14

0.155

1.441

10.4

Year

112

0.476

16.100261.5

Report Braidwood Illinois IBRAU

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5 Reference[1] BMU (2007): ARTM, Entwicklung, Validierung und Bereitstellung eines atmosphärischen
Ausbreitungsmodells für luftgetragene radioaktive Stoffe auf der Basis desAusbreitungsmodells AUSTAL2000 der neuen TA Luft”, GRS mbH, Köln.
[2] VDI (2017): Environmental meteorology - Atmospheric dispersion models Determination of Klug/Manier dispersion categories. VDI Standard 3782 Blatt 6, BeuthVerlag, Berlin.
[3] VDI (2017): Environmental meteorology - Quality assurance of meteorological data fordispersion calculation according to TA Luft and GIRL. VDI-Richtlinie 3783 Blatt 21,
Beuth-Verlag, Berlin.

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Appendix 1: Two-dimensional contamination of Tritium

Figure 4:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 1.

Figure 5:Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 6:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 3.

Figure 7:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the full year; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 8:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 1.

Figure 9:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 10:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 3.

Figure 11:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the full year; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 12:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 13:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 14:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 15:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 16:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 1…4.

Figure 17:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 18:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 19:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the first quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 20:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 21:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 22:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 23:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 24:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 25:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 26:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 27:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the second quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 28:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 29:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 30:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 31:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 32:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 33:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 34:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 35:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the third quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 36:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 37:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 38:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 39:

Continuous release: two-dimensional contamination of Tritium [Ci/m²] due toprecipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Figure 40:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 1.

Figure 41:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 2.

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Figure 42:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 3.

Figure 43:

Sum of continuous release and batch release: two-dimensional contamination of
Tritium [Ci/m²] due to precipitation for the fourth quarter; calculation grid 4.

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Appendix 2: Daily Impact of Tritium at four assessment points

January
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

2,50
2,00
1,50
1,00
0,50
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 44:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for January at the four examination
points.

February
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

0,40
0,35
0,30
0,25
0,20
0,15
0,10
0,05
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

P1
Figure 45:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for February at the four examination
points.

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March
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

4,50
4,00
3,50
3,00
2,50
2,00
1,50
1,00
0,50
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 46:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for March at the four examination
points.

April
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

0,70
0,60
0,50
0,40
0,30
0,20
0,10
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 47:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for April at the four examination
points.

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May
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

12,00
10,00
8,00
6,00
4,00
2,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

P1
Figure 48:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for May at the four examination points.

June
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

12,00
10,00
8,00
6,00
4,00
2,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 49:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for June at the four examination
points.

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July
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

30,00
25,00
20,00
15,00
10,00
5,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 50:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for July at the four examination points.

AugustWet deposition in nCi/m²/d

50,00
45,00
40,00
35,00
30,00
25,00
20,00
15,00
10,00
5,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

P1
Figure 51:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for August at the four examination
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September
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

18,00
16,00
14,00
12,00
10,00
8,00
6,00
4,00
2,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 52:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for September at the four examination
points.

October
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

6,00
5,00
4,00
3,00
2,00
1,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 53:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for October at the four examination
points.

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November
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

7,00
6,00
5,00
4,00
3,00
2,00
1,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

P1
Figure 54:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for November at the four examination
points.

December
Wet deposition in nCi/m²/d

16,00
14,00
12,00
10,00
8,00
6,00
4,00
2,00
0,00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

P1
Figure 55:

P2

Day P4
P3

Maximum daily mean values to be expected for December at the four examination
points.

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Appendix 3: Tritium activity in rainwater at four assessment points

Tritium activity in rain water at assessment point P1

14

Tritium activity in nCi/l

3,5

12

3,0

10

2,5

8

2,0

6

1,5

4

1,0

2

0,5
0,0

1

2

3

4

5

Mean [nCi/l]Figure 56:

7,0

6

7

8

Month [nCi/l]Maximum

9

10

11

12

Count

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P1 per month

Tritium activity in rain water at assessment point P2

20
18

Trtium activity in nCi/l

6,0

16

5,0

14
12

4,0

10

3,0

8
6

2,0

4

1,0
0,0

2
1

2

3

4

5

Mean [nCi/l]Figure 57:

0Count of hours

4,0

6

7

8

Month [nCi/l]Maximum

9

10

11

12

0

Count

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P2 per month

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Tritium activity in rain water at assessment point P3

30

Tritium activity in nCi/l

20

1,5

15
1,0

10

0,5
0,0

5

1

2

3

4

5

Mean [nCi/l]Figure 58:

18,0

6

7

8

Month [nCi/l]Maximum

9

10

11

12

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P3 per month

Tritium activity in rain water at assessment point P430

Tritium activity in nCi/l

25

14,0

20

12,0
10,0

15

8,0

10

6,0
4,0

5

2,0
1

2

3

4

5

Mean [nCi/l]Figure 59:

0

Count

16,0

0,0

Count of hours

25

2,0

Count of hours

2,5

6

7

8

Month [nCi/l]Maximum

9

10

11

12

0

Count

Tritium activity in rainwater at assessment point P4 per month

Report Braidwood Illinois IBRAU

Seite 51

. . .extremely important and timely, especially considering the present
plans for the large-scale release of radioactive, tritium-contaminatedwater from the damaged Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. . . .
Dr. Robert RichmondResearch Professor and Director,
Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Rigorously independent and critical analyses in the field of ionisingradiation and health, that draw upon and update evidence-based
conclusions, like this one, are vital. . . .
Tilman Ruff, MB, BS (Hons.)
Co-President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
This book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the impact oftritium on the environment. Written in an easy-to-read style, it challenges
conventional wisdom and provides a comprehensive overview of thelarge variety of effects of tritium beyond the commonly understood linkto cancer. . . .
Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress
Scientist-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor,
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies,
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey================
Arjun Makhijani has a Ph.D. in Engineering (specialization: nuclear
fusion) from the University of California at Berkeley. He has written widely
about the impacts of nuclear weapons production and testing, nuclear
power, and nuclear waste for over four decades. He is president of theInstitute for Energy and Environmental Research (www.ieer.org), which
provides the public with accurate scientific information to promote thedemocratization of science and a safer, healthier environment.

OPUS SELF-PUBLISHING
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$20.00ISBN 978-1-62429-447-1

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