Offsite environmental monitoring report. Radiation monitoring around United States nuclear test areas, calendar year 1981

This report, prepared in accordance with the guidelines in DOE/E-0023 (DOE 1981), covers the program activities conducted around Nevada Test Site (NTS) for calendar year 1981. It contains descriptions of pertinent features of the NTS and its environs, summaries of the dosimetry and sampling methods, analytical procedures, and the analytical results from environmental measurements. Where applicable, dosimetry and sampling data are compared to appropriate guides for external and internal exposures of humans to ionizing radiation. The monitoring networks detected no radioactivity in the various media which could be attributed to US nuclear testing. Small amounts of fission products were detected in air samples as a result of the People's Republic of China nuclear test and atmospheric krypton-85 increased, following the trend beginning in 1960, due to increased use of nuclear technology. Strontium-90 in milk and cesium-137 in meat samples continued the slow decline as observed for the last several years