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Published: 2000

Total Pages: 26

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Scientists from the Environmental Science and Research Foundation, Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies Company (LMITCO), the US Geological Survey, the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program Naval Reactors Facility, Argonne National Laboratory-West, and others monitored the environment on and around the INEEL to find contaminants attributable to the INEEL. During 1998, exposures from the INEEL to the public were found to be negligible. The US Department of Energy (DOE) and LMITCO made progress in developing and implementing a site-wide Environmental Management System. This system provides an underlying structure to make the management of environmental activities at the INEEL more systematic and predictable. Pathways by which INEEL contaminants might reach people off the INEEL were monitored. These included air, precipitation, water, locally grown food (milk, lettuce, wheat, and potatoes), livestock, game animals, soil, and direct ionizing radiation. Results from samples collected to monitor these pathways often contain ''background radioactivity, '' which is radioactivity from natural sources and nuclear weapons tests carried out between 1945 and 1980. According to results obtained in 1998, radioactivity from operations at the INEEL could not be distinguished from this background radioactivity in the regions surrounding the INEEL. Because radioactivity from the INEEL was not detected by offsite environmental surveillance methods, computer models were used to estimate the radiation dose to the public. The hypothetical maximum dose to an individual from INEEL operations was calculated to be 0.08 millirem. That is 0.002 percent of an average person's annual dose of 360 millirem from natural background radiation in southeast Idaho.