Health risks from radionuclides released into the Clinch River

The purpose of this work is to estimate off-site radiation doses and health risks (with uncertainties) associated with the release of radionuclides from the X-10 site. Following an initial screening analysis, the exposure pathways of interest included fish ingestion, drinking water ingestion, the ingestion of milk and meat, and external exposure from shoreline sediment. Four representative locations along the Clinch River, from the White Oak Creek Embayment to the city of Kingston, were chosen. The demography of the lower Clinch River supplied information dealing with land use that aided in the determination of sites on which to focus efforts. The locations that proved to be the most significant included Jones Island at Clinch River Mile (CRM) 20.5, Grassy Creek and K-25 (CRM 14), Kingston Steam Plant (CRM 3.5), and the city of Kingston (CRM 0). These areas of interest have historically been and are still primarily agricultural and residential areas. Reference individuals were determined with respect to the pathways involved. The primary radionuclides of interest released from the X-10 facility into the Clinch River via White Oak Creek were identified in the initial screening analysis as 137Cs, 90Sr, 60Co, 106Ru, 144Ce, 131I, 95Zr, and 95Nb. Of these radionuclides, 137Cs, 60Co, 106Ru, 90Sr, 144Ce, 95Zr, and 95Nb were evaluated for their contribution to the external exposure pathway. This study utilized an object-oriented modeling software package that provides an alternative to the spreadsheet, providing graphical influence diagrams to show qualitative structure of models, hierarchical models to organize complicated models into manageable modules, and intelligent arrays with the power to scale up simple models to handle large problems. The doses and risks estimated in this study are not significant enough to cause a detectable increase in health effects in the population. In most cases, the organ does are well below the limits of epidemiological detection (1 to 30 cSv) for radiation-induced health outcomes. Therefore, it is unlikely that exposure to radionuclides released from the X-10 site is responsible for an increased number of cancers to populations utilizing the Clinch River after 1944