Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

A feasibility study of work group monitoring for Hanford

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10151539· OSTI ID:10151539
Present Hanford internal dosimetry policy recommends placing a worker on a routine bioassay monitoring program if the 50-year committed effective dose equivalent (CEDE) in a single calendar year may exceed 100 mrem for all radionuclides. Nearly all Hanford workers who enter contamination zones are on routine bioassay programs. Site environmental restoration and remediation now require an even larger number of workers to enter contamination zones, therefore increasing the number of workers requiring routine bioassay monitoring. Work group bioassay is a method which demonstrates, at a reduced cost, that workers who are assumed to be essentially at no risk for incurring intakes are, in fact, not incurring intakes. For the proposed program, a work group will be identified by a letter to their exposure history file. The analytical result for a work group bioassay sample will be placed in the dosimetry record of the person actually providing the sample and will be identified as pertaining to a work group by an appropriate code. Any positive result will be followed up using the same procedure as for individual-specific bioassay, which limits false positives to less than 0.5%. Workers who (1) have radioactive material depositions that interfere with detecting and assessing additional intakes, (2) use any form of respiratory protection, or (3) enter airborne radioactivity areas will be excluded from a work group bioassay program and placed on an individual-specific bioassay program.
Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC06-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
10151539
Report Number(s):
PNL--9468; ON: DE94012137
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English