Iodine-129 in the environment of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant: II. Iodine-129 and iodine-127 contents of soils, forage plants and deer thyroids

Concentrations of 129I and 127I in soils, forage plants and deer thyroids collected in the environment of the small Karlsruhe nuclear fuel reprocessing plant (WAK) were determined by neutron activation analysis. Levels of 129I in all samples were found to be elevated by several orders of magnitude above current average biospheric background values. In particular, deer thyroids were found to have very high 129I levels and corresponding high 129I/127I ratios.Using all the analytical data for 129I and 127I concentrations in plants it seems probable that there is a correlation between the 129I and the natural 127I concentrations in plants