Gamma exposure rates in the Steel Creek and Little Hell landing areas

Aeroradiographic and ground transect γ surveys in the summer of 1974 were conducted to determine the degree of offsite radioactive contamination in an area immediately below the Savannah River plant boundary. Since it is recognized that mechanisms in the biosphere tend to cause nonhomogenous distribution and redistribution of radionuclides released to the environment, a plan was developed to continually evaluate the radioactivity of the offsite area. As part of this plan, a 1300-foot-long section of offsite swamp (42.9 acres) adjacent to the SRP boundary was surveyed in the latter half of October 1974 on a 10-foot grid pattern. The results of this survey show that 6.6 of the 42.9 acres surveyed in detail has γ exposure rates exceeding 57 μR/hr (approximately 500 mR/yr). The maximum exposure rate found at a single grid point was 120 μR/hr. Approximately 5.8 Ci of 137Cs was deposited in the 42.9-acre 10-foot grid survey area. It was calculated a hypothetical person residing continuously in the location of highest exposure rate when the swamp is not flooded (77 percent of the time each year) could receive an annual dose of about 809 mR. Previous surveys of this area indicated a maximum external annual dose of 357 mR under the same residency conditions. Even with the higher exposure rates detected in the 10-foot grid survey, the more probable incremental radiation dose (above background) to hunters and fishermen who spend a few hours to a few hundred hours in this section of swamp would range from less than 1 mR to a few tens of mR per year