Initial Basis for Agronomic Countermeasure Selection Following a Nuclear Accident

During the recovery stage, following a nuclear accident, application of agricultural countermeasures will be relevant to the minimization of the radiation induced detriment due to ingestion of locally produced contaminated foodstuff, as long as the magnitude of the averted dose is sufficient to justify their implementation. Nuclear emergency planning in Argentina currently holds food ban as the accepted countermeasure, at least until other measures are taken. Though it may ensure no residual collective dose, food ban may also imply very high costs, compared to other alternatives, specially due to the need of disposing off perishable food such as milk. Therefore, an exhaustive evaluation of all the alternatives, considering both quantitative and qualitative factors is still needed to identify optimal countermeasure strategies, bearing in mind also that decisions made during the early phase of an emergency will affect the fate of the measures to be taken later. As a first step in this direction, a basic quantitative decis sion-aiding technique, the cost-benefit analysis, is carried out for comparison of countermeasures related to Cesium contaminated cow-milk which are considered feasible for implementation in Argentina. Countermeasures total costs are estimated from various local sources, while their effectiveness are adopted from international bibliography. At this stage, a simple theoretical example considering milk contamination in the surroundings of the Embalse Nuclear Power Plant is used for a generic analysis, since actual collective doses and costs can only be calculated for a specific modelled scenario. (authors)