Foreword 



Before 1973 environmental research into the behavior of the transuranium elements was 

 conducted on an ad hoc basis. It was usually prompted by some contamination event, 

 such as the loss of nuclear material in the military aircraft accidents at Palomares, Spain, 

 and Thule, Greenland, or the discovery of plutonium concentrations that exceeded 

 fallout levels at such locations as the Rocky Flats Plant near Golden, Colo., and the 

 Nevada Test Site. These research activities were usually aimed at describing the 

 distribution of plutonium and appraising the health hazard at the individual site. Because 

 this information was gathered at specific sites, it was not sufficient for generalized 

 statements about environmental movement. In about 1970 the Nevada Applied Ecology 

 Group began an integrated program at the Nevada Test Site in an attempt to provide a 

 broader information base on transuranium elements. This program, however, was 

 applicable primarily to desert environments. Some experimental studies at other locations 

 were concerned with the uptake of transuranium elements by vegetation, but most of 

 these dealt with western soils of high pH. No concerted effort was made to study 

 transuranic radionuclide behavior in the marine environment except for studies at Thule, 

 Greenland, and the Pacific Testing Grounds in the Marshall Islands. 



In 1973 the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Biomedical and 

 Environmental Research (BER) (now U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Health and 

 Environmental Research), performed an intensive study of its research efforts in support 

 of the development of nuclear power with special emphasis on the Liquid Metal Fast 

 Breeder Reactor (LMFBR). The environmental team reviewed information gathered up to 

 that time on transuranic cycling in various environments and concluded that a 

 comprehensive description of the environmental hazards of plutonium and the other 

 transuranium elements relative to the LMFBR could not be made with the available data 

 nor would it be forthcoming with the established research by BER contractors. It was 

 obvious that too much of the past research had been centered on studies in the western 

 regions, which were arid or semiarid, and essentially no studies had been made of soil 

 movement and plant uptake in the humid eastern regions where fuel reprocessing plants 

 were scheduled to operate. In addition, very little information was available on the 

 cycling of plutonium through aquatic food webs inclusive of the marine studies in 

 Greenland and the Marshall Islands. Essentially no research on the environmental 

 behavior of transplutonic elements was under way, and the question of the long-term 

 behavior and fate of the transuranium elements had not been addressed in any effective 

 way. Further, the question of biological modification of the transuranium elements, 

 which might lead to increased mobilization in the environment and possible underestima- 

 tions of the dose to man, was not addressed. 



II! 



