NAEG PLUTONIUM PROGRAM VEGETATION STUDIES
STATUS REPORT, MAY 1975
E. M. Romney
Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine
UCLA, Los Angeles
SCOPE OF PROGRAM
The significance of vegetation in any plutonium-contaminated area
rests primarily upon its capacity to function as the carrier for
plutonium and other transuranics in the food chains leading to grazing
animals and man.
Two different mechanisms of incorporation are
involved in this transport process.
First, the contaminant may
become superficially entrapped upon vegetation through the processes
of resuspension.
This is expected to be the most important mechanism
in the desert ecosystem, where environmental conditions are favorable
to wind-driven forces.
Second,
the plutonium disseminated in soil
may be taken up through plant roots and translocated to the aboveground vegetation.
The Nevada Applied Ecology Group (NAEG) vegetation
studies are expected to contribute information on how these two
mechanisms of incorporation function in the vegetation-carrier transport of plutonium and other transuranics from soil to grazing animals
and man.
DATA SUMMARY
Vegetation samples were collected in conjunction with soil samples
from 10 study areas.
Laboratory processing and radiochemical analysis
of the vegetation samples essentially has been completed for Areas 13
and GMX-5 of the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
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About 60% of the samples