Statement from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Regarding Indian Point Nuclear Facility - “Yesterday I learned that radioactive tritium-contaminated water leaked into the groundwater...alarming levels of radioactivity at three monitoring wells, with one well’s radioactivity increasing nearly 65,000 percent"

Radiation protection scientist here, responsible for GW and tritium management so read this if you're not familiar with tritium. Tritium (HT) from nuclear reactors is primarily in the form of tritiated water (HTO), which is a low energy beta emitter that can't penetrate human skin. Tritiated water is chemically identical to regular water so tritium can't be filtered out. If HT vapor is inhaled, uptake via the lungs is less than 0.01% with 99.98% of inhaled activity being exhaled. Tritiated water (HTO) is a different story, with uptake via inhalation or ingestion being nearly 100%. The biological half life of tritiated water is roughly 10 days. Drinking water containing 1,500 picocuries per liter (pCi/l) for one full year would result in an annual dose exposure of about 0.4 mrem. The NRC limits nuclear plant employees to an annual limit of 5,000 mrem, or 5 rem per year. Exposure from one full-body CT scan averages 400-1200 mrem.

The NCRP report 30 Annual Limit for Intake is 80 mCi, which is the activity level required to equal a whole body dose of 5 rem/year, which is also the NRC plant employee dose limit. The highest well at Indian Point was 8,000,000 pCi/l, or 0.008 mCi/l. That means you would have to drink 10,000 liters of this to equal the NRC annual limit of 5 rem, or roughly 27.4 liters a day.

Now I'm not saying this isn't bad, I'm simply comparing the well concentration to actual federal regulatory limits instead of sensationalizing them. But I am saying the strong emphasis on well concentration percent increase and Fukushima comparisons are clearly anti-nuclear fear mongering.

That being said, the highest well concentration I've ever encountered is 8,000 pCi/l, and the sharp increase seen at Indian Point indicates that the source is very highly concentrated HTO. This will be a very big NRC violation but it is not a potential core meltdown or fuel accident, they would see fission products in the well if it was.

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