--Joan King Disposing of even a tiny amount of radiation proves to be difficult/title><link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /><link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="DWMX2004"> <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="admin"> <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT=" North, Georgia Mountains, Articles, social, cultural, aesthetic, globalization, economics, AIDS, Human Rights, RESULTS, FCC, Civil Liberties, reproductive rights"> <META NAME="Description" CONTENT="This is a personal collection of Joan King columns Creator lives in Dahlonega North Georgia"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> </head> <body> <table align=center width=640 valign="top"><tr> <td> <p><strong>Disposing of even a tiny amount of radiation proves to be difficult</strong><br /> </p> <p><strong>Joan King</strong></p> <p>COLUMNIST </p> <p>Do you have any radioactive material lying around your house? I do, and I've been trying to figure out what to do about it. </p> <p>There is a lot of natural radiation in our environment, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about man-made radiation, radiation from matter created in a nuclear reactor, about Americium 241, a transuranic element that emits alpha particles and gamma radiation. </p> <p>If you have a smoke detector in your house, take it down and read what it says on the back. The chances are it contains Americium and is licensed by the NRC, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. </p> <p>Concerned as I am about nuclear proliferation, and this means nuclear power plants as well as nuclear weapons, I happen to be very glad I have one of these smoke alarms. </p> <p>My smoke alarm is also a carbon monoxide detector. Last summer while I was working in the yard, both the upstairs and downstairs alarms began chirping away. At first I ignored it thinking a couple of birds were engaged in some sort of mating behavior, but when I went inside I realized we had a rather serious problem. </p> <p>Apparently our furnace had some faulty heating ducts and was pumping CO into the house. Left unattended, it could have reached dangerous levels. </p> <p>In an enclosed area, carbon monoxide can kill. We got the furnace repaired, and since then we've been very careful to keep our smoke alarms in good working order. </p> <p>Recently one of them had to be replaced. Now what? How does a responsible environmentalist dispose of a defunct smoke alarm? Knowing it contains radioactive material, I couldn't simply throw it in the trash, but nobody seemed to have a better solution. </p> <p>OK, the NRC licensed it. The NRC can tell me what to do with it. </p> <p>I'll phone Washington, but first I need the phone number. I called information. The number they gave me was not in service. I tried again. Same recording: "Sorry, not in service." </p> <p>I tried information again, this time explaining my problem to the operator. She seemed stymied but then gave me two possible numbers. The first turned out to be the Department of Labor. I have no idea why. </p> <p>The second was the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an oversight group concerned with Yucca Mountain. It occurred to me that in a time of heightened national security, it's a bit disconcerting to have such a hard time reaching the government office in charge of nuclear affairs. </p> <p>Persistent to the end, I decided to try Georgia's Department of Environmental Protection. I finally reached a very nice man in their Environmental Radiation Program. It seems you can throw smoke alarms in the trash. </p> <p>However, the man suggested I consult the manufacturer to see if they had some sort of recycling program. I did, and they do. It turns out that although the Americium in a single alarm is so well-shielded that it's OK to dispose of it in the trash, a commercial operation that uses a large number of alarms should return them to the manufacturer for disposal in a low level nuclear waste dump. </p> <p>Now comes the interesting part of the story. Apparently (and I sincerely hope this practice has stopped) alarm companies have been known to sell these broken alarms to a third party for as little as a dollar apiece. </p> <p>In the mid-1990s, a teenager in Michigan named David Hahn decided to build a nuclear reactor in his mother's back yard. He conned the NRC into providing information and a smoke alarm company into selling him broken smoke detectors. </p> <p>He extracted the Americium, put it in a lead box with a pin-prick sized hole, and used the stream of alpha rays as a neutron gun to irradiate other materials. </p> <p>Before David's activities were discovered, he managed to irradiate his whole neighborhood. The contamination level in the shed where he worked was about 1,000 times background level. According to the EPA it "present(ed) an imminent endangerment to public health." </p> <p>Heavily shielded Haz-Mat workers dismantled the shed and carried it off to a radioactive dump in the Great Salt Lake Desert. David joined the Navy. </p> <p>If you find this tale hard to believe or if you just want more information, go to the Web and Google "the radioactive Boy Scout." And think about this story next time there's a discussion on nuclear safety. </p> <p>Originally published Tuesday, December 20, 2005</p> <p><a href="http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20051220/opinion/49815.shtml%20">http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20051220/opinion/49815.shtml<strong> </strong></a></p> <h1> </h1> <table width="600" align="center" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td> <p><br /> <a href="http://joanking.gamountains.net">Home</a></p> <p></p></td> </tr> </table> <p align="center"> <br /> </p></td></tr></table> </body> </html>