Radioactive Fence Posts?

[buickanddeere]

Jim, I didn't even know scrap yards tested for radiation
Yep we learn a lot here.....

What usually occurs in minor situations is cobalt 60 used in "needle" medical treatment of tumours being "lost" and ending up in metal scrap. The real problem is equipment used for radiological treatment in remote, under funded and 3rd world countries. Somebody who doesn't know or doesn't care sells used/obsolete/stolen medical equipment to the local scrap dealer who doesn't know or care about radiation. The wee pellet of cobalt 60 is rather small and appears unobtrusive if it is noticed at all. Cesium 137 is often used in industrial applications on production lines as the source in scanner that verify if a container is empty or full. The cesium sources are very low dose. The primary source of radiation in scrap metal and land fills is smoke detectors. I don't know why it is ok to toss a 20,000cpm smoke detector in the landfill yet 100cpm of naturally occurring thorium glaze on somebody's porcelain coffee mug makes the radiation department all fussy.
Now the stage is set for a large amount of low level radioactive metal to be located and placed in storage at great cost $$$.

 

[buickanddeere]

I worked in radiation lab for 20 years. Little fact - Bananas have low dose radiation (think from phosphorus decay) as does Fiesta 60s dishes..

iirc a banana is worth about 4900 Bq of K40 beta internal dose.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Can you site a source on the Japan incident the link provided did not mention it.

Sorry, I was going from memory of an article I read probably 15 years ago.

The link provides information on the rates of cancer in Nagasaki & Hiroshima, but not the particular building I mentioned.

Friend of mine was stationed as service tech at military radar unit. He told me that there was no single officer who had a son. All officers had only daughters. Apparently the male sperms are less resistant to radiation.

Hogwash.

 

[rustydollar]

The danger from the possts is probably about the same as your tap water. Odds are good that that water has trace amounts of arsenic, mine does.

IOW - there is no danger from the posts.

Arsenic in ground water could be serious, you'll note the guideline for drinking water is in PPB parts per billion.

Drinking Water

EPA has set 10 ppb as the allowable level for arsenic in drinking water (maximum contaminant level). (EPA 2006)

The World Health Organization recommends a provisional drinking water guideline of 10 ppb.
Food

Arsenic is used in some veterinary drugs, including those used to treat animals used for commercial food products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established tolerance levels for arsenic in byproducts of animals treated with veterinary drugs. These permissible levels range from 0.5 ppm in eggs and uncooked edible tissues of chickens and turkeys to 2 ppm in certain uncooked edible byproducts of swine.

Shellfish (especially bivalve mollusks and crustaceans) concentrate arsenic in seawater, but it exists in the organic forms, which have not been shown to produce adverse effects in humans consuming these seafoods. This type of organic arsenic is also rapidly excreted.

Groundwater arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh: An interview with Dr Manzurul Hassan : Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience Blog

 

[turnkey4099]

Arsenic in ground water could be serious, you'll note the guideline for drinking water is in PPB parts per billion.

[/ATTACH]

Note that I said "tRACE AMOUNTS" and trce amounts of it are common in water wells.

 

[buickanddeere]

There are trace amounts of everything in anything.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

The Navy has been scrapping nuclear submarines for decades. I wonder how much of that radiated steel gets into the scrap stream? It may test out OK to their allowable radiation level when in a carload but what happens if it gets concentrated in the melting process? They do bury the reactor units at the Hanford Resrvation out in the WA desert. One of overall pollution problem with various wastes is the old process of "the solution to pollution is dilution". That idea still prevails somewhat today. Then somewhere the dilution becomes concentration; such as animals and plants. What happened to all those nuclear artillery rounds the Army scrapped after the cold war ended? Maybe a lot got into the scrap stream.

What a base for a good conspiracy/thriller novel.

Ron

 

[npalen]

Is there any chance that the nails in pallets could be contaminated?

Edit:

 

[buickanddeere]

Tungsten is a common alloy added to steel for hardness and toughness without raising carbon levels. Tungsten is so hot with isotopes that used grinding wheels , cutters, welding tips, some fasteners and turbine blades are disposed of as low level radioactive waste rather than the civilian landfill.
Probably the most common cause of " contaminated " scrap.

 

[atomchaser]

Tungsten is a common alloy added to steel for hardness and toughness without raising carbon levels. Tungsten is so hot with isotopes that used grinding wheels , cutters, welding tips, some fasteners and turbine blades are disposed of as low level radioactive waste rather than the civilian landfill.
Probably the most common cause of " contaminated " scrap.

You are talking about thorium not tungsten. The percentage used in various industrial applications (alloys) is very small and not a health concern under most conditions.

To the OP -- the pipes you have are not a health concern. If you for some reason decide to remove the scale on the inside of the pipe with a grinder or needle gun, use appropriate PPE.

 

[k0ua]

Some TIG welding electrodes are thoriated tungsten. I use lanthanated tungsten. While the risk is very small, during the tip grinding process, small amounts of thoriated tungsten are put into the air and could be breathed in.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Some TIG welding electrodes are thoriated tungsten. I use lanthanated tungsten. While the risk is very small, during the tip grinding process, small amounts of thoriated tungsten are put into the air and could be breathed in.

That is a very important point that needs repeating. Casual, infrequent contact with low level radiation is not normally a cause for concern. However, it's another thing to inhale these materials, and carry them around with you for the rest of your life, basically assuring that you are constantly exposed to the radiation 24 hours a day. This virtually assures that even alpha emissions, which are energetic, but cannot penetrate much more than a sheet of paper, are perpetually bombarding your body with radiation...not to mention some of these isotopes can be extremely poisonous.

Don't ingest it, don't breathe it.

 

[k0ua]

That is a very important point that needs repeating. Casual, infrequent contact with low level radiation is not normally a cause for concern. However, it's another thing to inhale these materials, and carry them around with you for the rest of your life, basically assuring that you are constantly exposed to the radiation 24 hours a day. This virtually assures that even alpha emissions, which are energetic, but cannot penetrate much more than a sheet of paper, are perpetually bombarding your body with radiation...not to mention some of these isotopes can be extremely poisonous.

Don't ingest it, don't breathe it.

Exactly. Holding a thoriated tungsten electrode in your hand is perfectly safe, but breathing in the grinding dust from one...not so much.

 

[Argonne]

Many of the previous posters have addressed the initial question very well, but the discussion brought back memories of an incident in 1983 where a Texas X-Ray machine got sold for scrap in Mexico, and the rest is history.

Here is a pretty good article of how it all went down. A Chance Encounter Led to the Detection of Radioactive Metal - The Washington Post

 

[Gary Fowler]

I think he meant radon, not radium, but I wasn't a licensed radiographer.

You are correct, don't know why I put Radium. Thinking one thing and typing another without proofing it.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Many of the previous posters have addressed the initial question very well, but the discussion brought back memories of an incident in 1983 where a Texas X-Ray machine got sold for scrap in Mexico, and the rest is history.

Here is a pretty good article of how it all went down. ]

Most folks don't know the difference between an Xray machine and a gamma ray radioactive source used to make radiographs (xrays in colloquial speak). An xray machine has no radioactive source so when there is no electrical power to it, it is basically inert. It produces xrays of varying strength depending on the voltage used. It produces X-rays only via a heated coil like a light bulb, strong electro-magnets and a focusing cone. A gamma ray source uses Cobalt 60 produces gamma and beta rays which is the most radioactive source used and required several hundred pound or even thousands of pound of lead shielding to contain the radiation. Iridium or Cesium are man made radioactive sources usually around 100-120 curies when first made but they deteriorate rapidly with half life of iridium of about 30 days. Half life is just that, at a given time depending on the radioactive source, the radiation looses half its life. So with a half life of 30 days a 100 curie source would be 50 in 30 days, 25 in 60days and so forth.
Cobalt 60 has a long half-life of 5.27 years so it is very dangerous to use.

I rather doubt that metals that are contaminated from ground contact (not polluted with a cobalt source when made like the Mexican steel) would be any more dangerous than living in a brick house or living at ultra high altitudes. Almost everything that comes from Mother Earth has some radiation in it in a very, very low level and does us no harm, might even help us.

 

[Argonne]

A gamma ray source uses Cobalt 60 produces gamma and beta rays which is the most radioactive source used and required several hundred pound or even thousands of pound of lead shielding to contain the radiation.

Where I retired from, they had, at one time, the most powerful Cobalt 60 source in the world, 275,000 Curies. The transport trailer actually needed a cooling system for the shielding I am told. By the time I started working there, they had sold some of the source and it was down to a mere 100,000 curies. Even at 100k, an LD50 exposure to that source was under 1 second. Over the years some impromptu "science" was conducted using it. Box Elder bugs unexpectedly took the prize, beating cockroaches by a wide margin...another myth busted.

To further expound on the difference between x-rays and gamma-rays, the only difference between them is the method of production. X-rays are produced artificially, and gamma-rays are produced from radioactive sources. At the business end (the radiation), there is no difference except for energy bandwidth which, except for highly specialized applications, doesn't matter.

 

[Shaneard]

I just warmed my lunch up in the microwave inside a plastic container. Surely that can't be good for you.

 

[Argonne]

I just warmed my lunch up in the microwave inside a plastic container. Surely that can't be good for you.

As long as you punch some holes in the top so you can breathe, you should be fine.

 

[buickanddeere]

You are talking about thorium not tungsten. The percentage used in various industrial applications (alloys) is very small and not a health concern under most conditions.

To the OP -- the pipes you have are not a health concern. If you for some reason decide to remove the scale on the inside of the pipe with a grinder or needle gun, use appropriate PPE.

I am most certainly talking about tungsten. Why doubt me?