ENVIRONMENT
whether these results can be used
to predict partitioning of plutonium
in other environments.
At the Farallones waste disposal
area off the California coast near
San Francisco, we see evidence of
smajl amounts of plutonium-238
remobilization to bottom waters
from sediments. The predicted
~ concentration in bottom waters
(based on the surface sediment
concentration and the distribution
coefficient) is 0.2 {Ci/l (1 {Ci equals
10-3 pCi). The measured concentration is 0.29 + 0.14 fCi/l.
We have recently completed
a study of plutonium distributions in the marine environment
of San Clemente Island, off the
Summary
LLNL studies of the behavior of
plutonium in the Marshall Islands
are providing data relevant to the
behavior of plutonium in other
marine environments and results
germaneto problems related to the
disposal of transuranics and other
radioactive waste in the ocean.
Key words: Bikini Atoll; Enewetak Atoll:
Marshall Islands; plutonium; radioactive wastes:
water pollution.
Notes and references
1. K.M. Wong, G. S. Brown, and V. E. Noshkin,
“A Rapid Procedure for Plutonium Separation in Large Volumes of Fresh and Saline
Water by Manganese Dioude Coprecipitation,” Radioanal. Chem. 42, 7-15 (1978).
coast of California. The mean con-
centration of 229*240 py in 16
surface-sediment samples was
15 + 6 {Ci/g dry weight. Using the
distribution coefficient of 2.3 X 10°
determined from our studies
in the Marshall Islands, we would
predict that seawaterin equilibrium
with these sediments should
contain 0.07 + 0.03 {Ci/l in solution. The average measured concentration in seawater samples was
0.09 + 0.05 fCi/l. The agreement
between the predicted and
measured concentrations in these
two examples is encouraging.
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