ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS, MONITORING, AND STUDY DESIGN 47 



media, such as air, water, soil, vegetation, and animals, and thus verify the results of 

 emission and effluent monitoring programs from which the radiological impacts from 

 existing facilities are estimated. The design of the surveillance programs and the 

 radiological assessments performed, however, are still heavily dependent on data provided 

 by the studies of transuranics in different ecosystems. 



General Aspects of Environmental Monitoring 



The general design of networks and of programs for the measurement of radioactive 

 materials in the environment has been described by the International Commission on 

 Radiological Protection (1965) and by the World Health Organization (1968). The 

 International Atomic Energy Agency (1966; 1975) has published two guides for 

 environmental monitoring, and more recently, the National Council on Radiation 

 Protection and Measurements (1976) published a report Qntitled Environmental Radia- ■ 

 tion Measurements. In addition to the recommendations of scientific bodies such as ICRP 

 and NCRP, more specific guidance for environmental monitoring is provided by 

 government agencies (U.S. Atomic Energy Comimission, 1974). The Nuclear Regulatory 

 Commission issues general guidance as regulatory guides. Regulatory Guide 4.5, issued in 

 1974, for example, deals with the sampling and analytical procedures for plutonium in 

 soil. The regulatory guides are not regulations but represent methods that are acceptable 

 for licensing actions or compliance with regulations for operating facilities. The 

 Department of Energy relies on surveillance programs tailored to specific sites and 

 problems. Its contractors issue annual reports of the methods and results of the 

 surveillance programs. The DOE follows A Guide for Environmental Radiological 

 Surveillance at ERDA Installations (Corley etal., 1977), which is based on a 

 state-of-the-art review of environmental monitoring practices. The specific objective of 

 the guide was to develop guidance for achieving comparable, high-quality, environmental 

 monitoring and reporting programs at DOE installations, which encompass a wide variety 

 of nuclear activities, i.e., plutonium production, reactor operation, and research studies. 

 Environmental monitoring systems for all types of facilities have many similarities. 

 Although somewhat specific to reactors, the Environmental Radioactivity Surveillance 

 Guide issued by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (1972) contains general 

 information on samphng methods and frequencies that can be applied. 



Monitoring systems are usually designed to verify that a facility is operating within 

 limits specified as safe by a scientific body. These limits become law where incorporated 

 into state or federal codes, such as Qjde of Federal Regulations, Title 10, Part 20 

 {Federal Register, 1976). Each monitoring program should, prior to deployment, identify 

 the pathways to man for transuranic elements in addition to the normal pathways 

 requiring monitoring by regulation. Figures 1 and 2 are examples of simplified pathway 

 diagrams for the movement of radionuclides to man. Not all the pathways in the diagrams 

 will be present for a given site. For a specific facihty and location, however, all pathways 

 should be identified and analyzed for their contribution of transuranic elements to the 

 total radionucHde uptake by man or biota. As pathways are identified and analyzed, the 

 number of pathways requiring routine monitoring will be reduced. In the analysis of 

 pathways, the short-term and long-term aspects of accumulation and movement of 

 transuranics should be kept in mind. 



The considerations that are included in the idenfification and analysis of the 

 pathways are the many aspects of environmental studies described in other chapters of 



