NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
2101 CONSTITUTION AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20418
The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard to appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
This report was prepared under contract 200-95-0965 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
International Standard Book Number 0-309-05677-2
Additional copies of this report are available from
National Research Council
Board on Radiation Effects Research
Room 342
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20418
202 334-2232
Copyright 1997 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
COMMITTEE ON AN ASSESSMENT OF CDC RADIATION STUDIES
WILLIAM J. SCHULL
(Chairman),
University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas
STEPHAN A. BENJAMIN,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
ANDRÉ BOUVILLE,
National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
PATRICIA A.H. BUFFLER,
University of California, Berkeley, California
GEOFFREY G. EICHHOLZ,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
J. CHARLES JENNETT,
Texas A&M International University, Laredo, Texas
LEEKA I. KHEIFETS,
Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, California
JAMES E. MARTIN,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
CHRISTOPHER B. NELSON,
US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC
HENRY D. ROYAL,
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis, Missouri
ROY E. SHORE,
New York University Medical Center, New York, New York
ROBERG G. THOMAS,
Bigfork, Montana
HENRY N. WAGNER JR.,
The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes, Baltimore, Maryland
JAMES M. WALL,
The Christian Century, Chicago, Illinois
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
EVAN B. DOUPLE,
Study Director
JOHN D. ZIMBRICK,
Director,
Board on Radiation Effects Research
DORIS E. TAYLOR,
Staff Assistant
NORMAN GROSSBLATT,
Editor
SPONSOR'S PROJECT OFFICER
JAMES M. SMITH,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
BOARD ON RADIATION EFFECTS RESEARCH
JOHN B. LITTLE
(Chairman),
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
MERRIL EISENBUD,
New York University Medical Center, New York, New York (emeritus)
MAURICE S. FOX,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
R.J. MICHAEL FRY,
Radiation Research, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
PHILIP HANAWALT,
Stanford University, Stanford, California
MAUREEN M. HENDERSON,
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
JONATHAN M. SAMET,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
WILLIAM J. SCHULL,
The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas
SUSAN W. WALLACE,
University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
H. RODNEY WITHERS,
UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
JOHN D. ZIMBRICK,
Director
EVAN B. DOUPLE,
Senior Program Officer
LARRY H. TOBUREN,
Senior Program Officer
(Department of Physics, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina)
CATHERINE S. BERKLEY,
Administrative Associate
DORIS E. TAYLOR,
Staff Assistant
COMMISSION ON LIFE SCIENCES
THOMAS D. POLLARD
(Chairman),
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California
FREDERICK R. ANDERSON,
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Washington, DC
JOHN C. BAILAR III,
University of Chicago, Illinois
PAUL BERG,
Stanford University, Stanford, California
JOHN E. BURRIS,
Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
SHARON L. DUNWOODY,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin California, Riverside, California
GLENN A. CROSBY,
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
URSULA W. GOODENOUGH,
Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
HENRY W. HEIKKINEN,
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado
HANS J. KENDE,
Michican State University, East Lansing, Michigan
SUSAN E. LEEMAN,
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
THOMAS E. LOVEJOY,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
DONALD R. MATTISON,
Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH E. MURRAY,
Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts
EDWARD E. PENHOET,
Chiron Corporation, Emeryville, California
EMIL A. PFITZER,
Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, Inc., Hackensack, New Jersey
MALCOLM C. PIKE,
Norris/USC Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, California
HENRY C. PITOT III,
McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
JONATHAN M. SAMET,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
CHARLES F. STEVENS,
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California
JOHN L. VANDEBERG,
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, San Antonio, Texas
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
PAUL GILMAN,
Executive Director
ALVIN L. LAZEN,
Associate Executive Director
SOLVEIG M. PADILLA,
Administrative Assistant
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is interim president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and interim vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
PREFACE
The first specific task requested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the National Research Council's Committee on an Assessment of CDC Radiation Studies was a review of draft reports prepared by the Radiological Assessments Corporation (RAC) pertaining to its efforts to reconstruct environmental doses of radionuclides in the vicinity of the Fernald, Ohio, nuclear facility, the Feed Materials Production Center (FMPC). The facility, some 15 miles northwest of Cincinnati, began operation in 1951 and continued production activities through 1988. (It is now called the Fernald Environmental Management Project, or FEMP.) FMPC converted uranium feed materials (uranium concentrates, uranium compounds recycled from various stages of nuclear-weapons production, and some uranium ores) to uranium metal ingots for machining or extrusion in tubular form. Although uranium processing was the primary activity at FMPC, smaller amounts of thorium were processed intermittently during the middle 1950s and in 1964-1980, and some recycled uranium feed materials were processed beginning in late 1963. These activities and the storage of waste production materials containing radionuclides in silos at the facility led to the release of substantial amounts of uranium dust and radon gas into the environment. The releases raised the possibility of detrimental health effects in people living in the vicinity of the facility.
The primary purpose of RAC's Fernald Dose-Reconstruction Project was to estimate the radiation doses received by members of the public who lived near FMPC between 1950 and 1989. RAC approached its charge through a series of 6 tasks: (1) identifying the release points on the Fernald site; (2) developing the source terms, that is, the quantity, chemical and physical form, and time course of contaminants released to the environment from the facility; (3) identifying the uncertainties or level of confidence in the assessment of the source term; (4) developing environmental transport and dose calculations; (5) identifying and compiling environmental and other data to verify the transport and dose calculations; and (6) presenting the final doses and health risks with their attending uncertainties. Each task culminated in an interim report that was reviewed by the committee. The first interim reports to be reviewed were on radionuclide source terms (task 2) and uncertainties (task 3) for 1960-1962; the committee's review, Dose
Reconstruction for the Fernald Nuclear Facility, was published in 1992. Next, the committee was asked to review the report of task 4, to develop methods that could be used to translate the release estimates into concentrations of radioactive materials in the residential environment. The committee's review of those methods, Dose Reconstruction for the Fernald Nuclear Facility: A Review of Task 4, was published in 1994. In 1995, the committee submitted a letter report to CDC in response to a request for advice on the methods and future directions of the Fernald project and on their appropriateness and scientific soundness. In that letter, the committee reported its findings and commented on 6 issues for which CDC requested further clarification. The committee endorsed the overall approach being used by RAC in the dose-reconstruction project, judged that the project was generally headed in the right direction, and commended RAC for its thoroughness in addressing all issues carefully, soundly, and persuasively.
RAC's draft report, Task 6: Radiation Doses and Risk to Residents from FMPC Operations from 1951-1988, was released in 2 volumes on August 22, 1996. Volume I summarizes the major releases of radionuclides, including releases to the atmosphere, surface water, and groundwater; discusses transport of radionuclides in air and in water; compares environmental measurements with predictions; and estimates the doses received by the public from FMPC releases, the health effects of the estimated doses, and the lifetime risks of cancer associated with each of 9 exposure scenarios. Volume II sets forth in technical detail the methods used in assessing doses and includes 20 appendixes that provide information on the data that were used, the analytic models and methods, and the assumptions inherent in the computations. The present report consists of the committee's review and assessment of those volumes.
The committee members wish to thank the members of the RAC team who briefed the committee on the contents of the reports and answered questions regarding the approaches and methods used in the study. Specifically, RAC president John E. Till and contributing authors Susan K. Rope, Duane W. Schmidt, and Warren K. Sinclair made presentations to the committee. The committee members also wish to express thanks to Doris E. Taylor for her assistance in the preparation of this report and for her administrative assistance.
William J. Schull
Chairman