Radio-Active Contamination and Radiation Exposure

-Radioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirable

Radioactive contamination is unregulated disbursement of radioactive materials, such as radioactive gases, liquids, or particles, in a place where they may harm individuals or equipment. Plants, buildings, people, and animals can all become contaminated by radioactive materials that are disbursed into the environment. Air, water, waste, and surfaces are other possible sources of radioactive contamination. For example, if a radioactive substance is inadvertently spilled on a floor, individuals may spread the substance simply by walking on the contaminated floor.

A number of events can cause radioactive contamination. If a nuclear explosion occurs, for example, it can result in the distribution of radioactive contamination. This phenomenon is usually known as nuclear fallout. When a radioactive substance is not properly sealed in a base container, it can spread to other objects, causing radioactive contamination. Radioactivity contamination can also be the unavoidable result of certain practices. For instance, radioactive materials are automatically released during nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Radioactive waste contamination can occur externally, internally, or through the environment. External contamination occurs when the radioactive material, usually in the form of dust, powder, or liquid, gets on an individual’s hair, skin, or clothing. Internal contamination takes places when an individual inhales, swallows, or absorbs a radioactive substance. When radioactive material is distributed or released into the environment, environmentalcontamination occurs.

Causes

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 Fukushima Disaster – March 11, 2011

A massive 8.9-magnitude quake hit northeast Japan on Friday, causing dozens of deaths, more than 80 fires, and a 10-meter (33-ft) tsunami along parts of the country’s coastline. Homes were swept away and damage was extensive. And the disaster didn’t end with this. Eleven reactors at four sites near Japan’s northeast coast were shut down per seismic emergency procedures. Five reactors at two sites in the Fukushima prefecture declared emergencies due to loss of normal site power and backup emergency power. According to a British nuclear expert the explosion at the Fukushima I nuclear plant looks likely to be a “significant nuclear event” with a bigger impact on public health than the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island. As of 15 March, the Finnish nuclear safety authority estimated the accidents at Fukushima to be at Level 6 on the INES. On 24 March, a scientific consultant for Greenpeace, working with data from the Austrian ZAMG and French IRSN, prepared an analysis in which he rated the total Fukushima I accident at INES level 7. The accident caused nuclear contamination in the surrounding environment, water, milk, vegetable and other food items. People living in surroundings were moved to safe shelters and food grown in the area was banned for sale. The Japanese government in handling the situation in the most efficient and amazing way that anyone can imagine. Screening is being done and people are given proper medical care. Initially 3 workers were affected by the radiation.

How Exposure or Contamination Can Happen

Radioactive materials could be released into the environment in the following ways:

• A nuclear power plant accident

• An atomic bomb explosion

• An accidental release from a medical or industrial device

• Nuclear weapons testing

• An intentional release of radioactive material as an act of terrorism

 Soviet Submarine K-19 Nuclear Accident

This accident was expanded on by a commander’s overzealous pride, when Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev refused American aid during a malfunction in his submarine’s nuclear reactor’s coolant system. When his crew protested being forced into a radioactive prison, the commander threw all their weapons overboard and the K-19 was dragged home by a diesel powered sub, contaminating the water, crew, and commander as it went.

Sources

Power Plant, Nuclear Reasearch Facilities, and Military activities.

Effects

It contaminates everything around especially food, making it not edible, too much exposure to the radiation may also lead to genetic mutation that may result to their next generation to have an abnormalities or carrying a genes with an unidentified diseases, it also causes cancer and other diseases that may lead to sudden death.

Biological effects

The biological effects of internally deposited radionuclides depend greatly on the activity, the biodistribution, and the removal rates of the radionuclide, which in turn depends on its chemical form, the particle size, and route of entry. Effects may also depend on the chemical toxicity of the deposited material, independent of its radioactivity. Some radionuclides may be generally distributed throughout the body and rapidly removed, as is the case withtritiated water.

Some organs concentrate certain elements and hence radionuclide variants of those elements. This action may lead to much lower removal rates. For instance, the thyroid gland takes up a large percentage of any iodine that enters the body. Large quantities of inhaled or ingested radioactive iodine may impair or destroy the thyroid, while other tissues are affected to a lesser extent. Radioactive iodine-131 is a common fission product; it was a major component of the radiation released from the Chernobyl disaster, leading to nine fatal cases of pediatric thyroid cancer and hypothyroidism. On the other hand, radioactive iodine is used in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases of the thyroid precisely because of the thyroid's selective uptake of iodine.

Mental health effects

The consequences of low-level radiation are often more psychological than radiological. Because damage from very-low-level radiation cannot be detected, people exposed to it are left in anguished uncertainty about what will happen to them. Many believe they have been fundamentally contaminated for life and may refuse to have children for fear of birth defects. They may be shunned by others in their community who fear a sort of mysterious contagion.

Forced evacuation from a radiation or nuclear accident may lead to social isolation, anxiety, depression, psychosomatic medical problems, reckless behavior, even suicide. Such was the outcome of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. A comprehensive 2005 study concluded that "the mental health impact of Chernobyl is the largest public health problem unleashed by the accident to date". Frank N. von Hippel, a U.S. scientist, commented on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, saying that "fear of ionizing radiation could have long-term psychological effects on a large portion of the population in the contaminated areas".

Such great psychological danger does not accompany other materials that put people at risk of cancer and other deadly illness. Visceral fear is not widely aroused by, for example, the daily emissions from coal burning, although, as a National Academy of Sciences study found, this causes 10,000 premature deaths a year in the US. It is "only nuclear radiation that bears a huge psychological burden — for it carries a unique historical legacy".

Prevention

Avoid using nuclear war heads as a source of world power.

Control

There is no possible control for the contamination if ever there is a leak but to abandon the place with about kilometers of radius from the source.

Red Tide Phenomenon

Causes

Red Tide is caused by a rapid population growth of microscopic plankton. This microscopic plankton release toxins that have severe effects on marine life and humans. The toxins are environmental chemicals that can interfere with metabolism, nerve conduction, and the central nervous system.

Sources

Microscopic planktons that releases toxin.

Effects

- Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon known as an algal bloom where causes discoloration in the water near the shoreline. Often it turns a reddish-brown colour, hence the name red tide. There have been occurrences where the water has turned a yellow, brown, or even a

purple shade.

Organisms involved in Red Tide are not always harmful to the marine life, but unfortunately there is a great number that are. These harmful algal blooms (HABs) have caused death among fish, birds, manatees, and several other vertebrate species. Eating the toxic plankton, eating other organisms already infected with the toxins, or simply by exposure through the water can contaminate organisms. The toxins do not affect filter-feeding shellfish even though the toxins are concentrated in their organs. Other fish, however, are not so lucky and end up being victims to the powerful red tide.

Prevention- none(because its naturally occurring in the environment)

Control

Satellite Imaging

Technological advancements such as satellite imagery have allowed scientists to better track and monitor harmful algal blooms. Tracking and monitoring red tide algae helps reduce harmful effects of the algae by providing warnings against eating infected shellfish and against swimming in infected waters

Acid Rain

Acid rain is rain consisting of water droplets that are unusually acidic because of atmospheric pollution - most notably the excessive amounts of sulfur and nitrogen released by cars and industrial processes. Acid rain is also called acid deposition because this term includes other forms of acidic precipitation such as snow.

Acidic deposition occurs in two ways: wet and dry. Wet deposition is any form of

Causes

Acid rain is rain consisting of water droplets that are unusually acidic because of atmospheric pollution - most notably the excessive amounts of sulfur and nitrogen released by cars and industrial processes. Acid rain is also called acid deposition because this term includes other forms of acidic precipitation such as snow.

Acidic deposition occurs in two ways: wet and dry. Wet deposition is any form of

There are two main causes of acid rain; the natural process in which caused by the natural environment and anthropogenic that is from to too much emission of gas in the

atmosphere due to Industrialization.

Urbanization

Industrialization

Volcanic Eruption

Sources

Emissions from vehicle’s, factories and other Industrial facilities and also other compounds from the wastes made by human in which is evaporated into the atmosphere.

Effects

Acid rain has been shown to have adverse impacts on forests, freshwaters and soils, killing insect and aquatic life-forms as well as causing damage to buildings, forests and having impacts on human health.

Prevention

Avoid too much emission of gasses that can aid to acid rain, and use public transport instead of using private vehicle’s if it possible, to reduce the amount and control the possible effects

Control

Many coal-firing power stations use flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) to remove sulfur-containing gases from their stack gases. For a typical coal-fired power station, FGD will remove 95% or more of the SO2 in the flue gases. An example of FGD is the wet scrubber which is commonly used. A wet scrubber is basically a reaction tower equipped with a fan that extracts hot smoke stack gases from a power plant into the tower. Lime or limestone in slurry form is also injected into the tower to mix with the stack gases and combine with the sulfur dioxide present. The calcium carbonate of the limestone produces pH-neutral calcium sulfate that is physically removed from the scrubber. That is, the scrubber turns sulfur pollution into industrial sulfates.

Eutrophication

Causes

Eutrophic and hypoxic events has been attributed to the rapid increase of nutrients resulting to increase of number of plant, animal and bacterial populations because of intensive agricultural practices, industrial activities, and population growth which together have increased nitrogen and phosphorus flows in the environment especially in the bodies of water.

Sources

Eutrophication is the accumulation of nutrients in aquatic ecosystems. It alters the dynamics of a number of plant, animal and bacterial populations; thus, bringing about changes in community structure. It is a form of water pollution and like all other forms of pollution is the result of human activities influencing ecological cycles. An increase in chemical nutrients — compounds containing nitrogen or phosphorus in an ecosystem, and may occur on land or in water.

It came from the excess nutrients like agricultural fertilizers, domestic sewage and livestock wastes.

Effects

Many ecological effects can arise from stimulating primary production commonly decreased biodiversity, changes in species composition and dominance, and toxicity effects.

Prevention

Avoid too much use of agricultural fertilizers to avoid run off from the farm and avoid dumping waste in the bodies of water.

Control

Nitrogen testing and modeling

Soil Nitrogen Testing (N-Testing) is a technique that helps farmers optimize the amount of fertilizer applied to crops. By testing fields with this method, farmers saw a decrease in fertilizer application costs, a decrease in nitrogen lost to surrounding sources, or both. By testing the soil and modeling the bare minimum amount of fertilizer needed, farmers reap economic benefits while reducing pollution.

Green House Effect

Causes

Atmospheric scientists first used the term 'greenhouse effect' in the early 1800s. At that time, it was used to describe the naturally occurring functions of trace gases in the atmosphere and did not have any negative connotations. It was not until the mid-1950s that the term greenhouse effect was coupled with concern over climate change. And in recent decades, we often hear about the greenhouse effect in somewhat negative terms. The negative concerns are related to the possible impacts of an enhanced greenhouse effect. This is covered in more detail in the Global Climate Change section of this Web site. It is important to remember that without the greenhouse effect, life on earth as we know it would not be possible.

While the earth's temperature is dependent upon the greenhouse-like action of the atmosphere, the amount of heating and cooling are strongly influenced by several factors just as greenhouses are affected by various factors.

In the atmospheric greenhouse effect, the type of surface that sunlight first encounters is the most important factor. Forests, grasslands, ocean surfaces, ice caps, deserts, and cities all absorb, reflect, and radiate radiation differently. Sunlight falling on a white glacier surface strongly reflects back into space, resulting in minimal heating of the surface and lower atmosphere. Sunlight falling on a dark desert soil is strongly absorbed, on the other hand, and contributes to significant heating of the surface and lower atmosphere. Cloud cover also affects greenhouse warming by both reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface and by reducing the amount of radiation energy emitted into space.

Scientists use the term albedo to define the percentage of solar energy reflected back by a surface. Understanding local, regional, and global albedo effects is critical to predicting global climate change.

Major cause of the greenhouse effect is the too much presence of gases in the atmosphere that causes radiation from the sun unable to bounce back into the outer space.

Sources

Just like the acid rain, this was also from emissions of the vehicle’s, factories and other Industrial facilities that produces too much compounds in the earth’s atmosphere.

Effects

Increase in Greenhouse Gases

The increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide, one of the three major atmospheric contributers to the greenhouse effect has been carefully documented at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The 1990 rate of increase was about 0.4% per year. The interesting cyclic variations represent the reduction in carbon dioxide by photosynthesis during the growing season in the northern hemisphere.

Current analysis suggests that the combustion of fossil fuels is a major contributer to the increase in the carbon dioxide concentration, such contributions being 2 to 5 times the effect of deforestation

Because of the greenhouse effect, a significant increase in greenhouse gases should translate to increase in global mean temperature causing polar caps to melt and sea level to rise that may result to shrinking of the continental land areas. Currently, there is a view among many scientists and layman that there is indeed an increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century and that it is most likely a result of an observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations

Prevention

Avoid using aerosols, sprays and other chemicals that may help to the rise of the temperature.

Control

To control this effect, the cause of excess Co2 due to accumulation of CO2 producing industries should be scattered in such a way that percentage of CO2 to be maitained at 0.6% or below by planting tree plantations which would result in consuming CO2 for food production by green leaves of trees and plants. In order to have controlled life in reducing foul gases that cause greenhouse effect and pollution.