32
result from any conceivable single event but would be the conseqae:
of cumulative effects over a long pericd (plus, of course, the abednce
of any attempt to make repairs). It is the committee's view, he
would prevent human access to the contaminated debris buried with
Any soil-cement or tremie material spilling or eroding from the do
into the lagoon would cause little change to the concentrations ca
transuranics there. Measurements on such material drilled from tip
dome showed a mean concentration of transuranics of 21.4 pCi/g wi
range of 1.8 to 52.3 pCi/g. Lagoon surface sedimentmeasurements Faken
within a mile of Cactus Crater show a range of transuranic concen
tions of transuranica in the superficial sadiments.
Even if material from within the dome were to contribute to tik
water column concentrations independently of the radioactivity
no
the sediments, the upper limit of the radiological hazard would 4
game as that estimated in the previous section for leaching.
A
all of the transuranics in the dome were remobilized to the water
column of the lagoon, the result at most would be an increased
only 1 mrem (to bone marrow)
through the ingestion of marine foods
5.9 Summary
It is clear that the estimates made here and in the previous
section depend directly on the validity of the dose estimates cals
lated by Robison and co-workers. These, in turn, depend om diet
surveys made at Ujelang and on measurements made by Noshkin and
co-workers (1980) of the transuranic concentrations in marine foo
It is conceivable that new observations will lead to new estimate:
uranics is an extreme one and is not supported by any existing
evidence.
For example, if the rate of remobilization from the dome to
the lagoon was similar to that from the lagoon's sediments, i.e.
30-year integral dose to bone marrow would be only 0.01 mrem (ses
section 5.7).
Further, the estimated dose from the ingestion of &
foods from present concentrations in the lagoon is sgzall.
It
q
require an increase of about 10° in the present estimate to prod:
a dose level that would be of serious concern.
the contain«ent structure will fail in its function of preventin
access to its contents and that no credible health hazard would
even if the containment structure’s transuranics were leached orlerodes
into the lagoon.