Letter to Dr. Wachholz
June 20, 1981
Page 2
know the results of the medical program promptly so that monitoring
and sampling efforts can be adjusted as necessary.
4,
Management Practices.
I believe Charlie Meinhold has moved appropriately to gain effective control of this program by assigning John Baum to monitor
the projects.
I have known John for many years and have full
confidence that he will take this responsibility seriously.
I believe Charlie recognizes the concern that I and others
have had about reviewing manuscripts to assure that irresponsible
gratuitous statements are not made that would invite further
unrest in the Marshalls.
5,
6.
Quality assurance procedures appear to be adequate.
I believe it is necessary to monitor persons who may eventually
inhabit plutonium contaminated islands as a check on the Livermore
assessment.
However, I don't think this project should support the
development of methods to increase the sensitivity of plutonium
bioassays because it is not justified by the need. Also, the "tail
would soon wag the dog" if this project became involved in plutonium
bioassay methodology. This topic is under investigation at a
number of places throughout the world, primarily to deal with
potential occupational exposures where the need is much more
acute. It is expensive research requiring funds well beyond the
current level of effort of these two projects. I do believe the
project leader should be aware of new developments in plutonium
bioassay and should adopt new methods after they have been proven,
but only if they would enhance this program.
7,
It does not appear that there is a need for BNL to undertake
environmental monitoring.
Livermore has this well in hand and a
duplication of their effort is not needed.
Also I don't believe
anything would be gained if Brookhaven collected a few samples just
as a check of the Livermore effort--the likelihood of the results
agreeing would be small considering the large variability of the
concentrations of radionuclides in soil, plants, etc.
PART 2
1.
Perhaps the only really negative aspect of the review was the
emphasis on ICRP in the leadoff presentation.
what was intended.
2.
I still don't know
I strongly urge the staff doing the dose assessment work to con-
tinually examine the reasonableness of their results.
For example,
as you remember I asked them if they had determined how much fish
would have to be eaten to give the °°Zn burdens they predicted.