RMI Nuclear Justice Documents

evaluated as part of the NMIRS QC program. The 537 water analyses were evaluated and
accepted separately.?

Of the 15,745 analyses evaluated herein, 12.5% were associated

with the QC program. Onan individual laboratory basis, QC program analyses accounted
for 12.7% of EAL's, 11% of EIC's, and 15.6% of LRE's evaluated analyses.

PREPARATION OF STANDARDS AND DUPLICATES
PREPARATION OF STANDARDS
The samples from the survey included soil and marine sediments, plant material,
marine tissue, and terrestrial animal tissue, and we prepared standards of each of the four
natural matrixes. Because the purpose of the standards was to substantiate the analyses
of other environmental samples, the character of the standards matched that of the

samples as closely as possible. The radioactivity in the standards was from the natural
environment and not merely added to the samples from a solution in which the chemical
forms of radioactivity might be quite different from those in the samples. Consequently,
each standard was prepared from material collected directly from the environment.
Environmental samples of vegetation and marine or terrestrial animal tissues
generally did not have enough radioactivity to serve as adequate standards.

These

samples were spiked with environmentally labeled radioactive algae~-the same algae used
by Volchok and Feiner at the DOE Environmental Measurements Laboratory (EML) to
prepare standards for the DOEintercalibration exercise.

Soil Standard
The soil standard was collected at the Marshall Islands and a large sample was
shipped to LLNL whereit was dried and ball milled. It was then shipped to WOSC where
it was sieved and the entire sample was blended in a large twin-cone blender.

The

homogenized soil was canned and labeled to conform to the style of samples prepared at
LLNL. This standard was also used for the marine sediment standard.

Vegetation Standard

To prepare the vegetation standard, we added a known amount of algae to
commercia! potato flakes, blended it in a twin-cone blender, and then it was canned and

labeled.