Radiological Laboratory Sample Analysis Guide for ...

United States Environmental Protection Agency

Office of Radiation and Indoor Air National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory

EPA 402-R-07-007 January 2008 narel

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Radiological Laboratory Sample Analysis Guide for Incidents of National Significance ? Radionuclides in Water

EPA 402-R-07-007 January 2008 Revision 0

Radiological Laboratory Sample Analysis Guide for Incidents of National Significance --

Radionuclides in Water

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Air and Radiation

Office of Radiation and Indoor Air National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory

Montgomery, AL 36115

Radiological Laboratory Sample Analysis Guide for Incidents of National Significance -- Radionuclides in Water

Preface

The document describes the likely analytical decision paths that would be required by personnel at a radioanalytical laboratory following a radiological or nuclear incident, such as that caused by a terrorist attack. EPA's responsibilities, as outlined in the National Response Plan Nuclear/ Radiological Incident Annex, include response and recovery actions to detect and identify radioactive substances and to coordinate federal radiological monitoring and assessment activities. This document was developed to provide guidance to those radioanalytical laboratories that will support EPA's response and recovery actions following a radiological or nuclear Incident of National Significance (INS).

The need to ensure adequate laboratory infrastructure to support response and recovery actions following an INS has been recognized by a number of federal agencies. The Integrated Consortium of Laboratory Networks (ICLN), created through a memorandum of understanding in 2005 by ten federal agencies, consists of existing and emerging laboratory networks across the Federal Government. ICLN is designed to provide a national infrastructure with a coordinated and operational system of laboratory networks that provide timely, high quality, and interpretable results for early detection and effective consequence management of acts of terrorism and other events requiring an integrated laboratory response. It also designates responsible federal agencies (RFAs) to provide laboratory support across response phases for chemical, biological, and radiological agents. To meet its RFA responsibilities for environmental and drinking water samples, EPA is developing the Environmental Laboratory Response Network (eLRN). As an RFA for radiological agents, eLRN will be responsible for monitoring, surveillance, and remediation, and will share responsibility for incident response with the Department of Energy. As part of eLRN, EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air is leading an initiative to ensure that sufficient environmental radioanalytical capability and competency exists across a core set of laboratories to carry out EPA's designated RFA responsibilities.

Three radioanalytical scenarios, responding to two different public health questions, address the immediate need to determine the concentration of known or unknown radionuclides in water. The scenarios are based upon the radionuclides that probably would be released by a radiological dispersion device or those that may be released intentionally into the drinking water supply. The first analytical scenario assesses whether water samples pose immediate threats to human health and warrant implementation of protective measures specific to radiation concerns. The second assesses whether specific water sources (samples) are potable based on current national drinking water standards. The third situation assumes that the radioactive contaminants are known, and a shortened version of the first two analytical scenarios is used to help expedite the analysis process. Use of established analytical schemes will increase the laboratory efficiency so that large numbers of samples can be analyzed in a timely manner. The use of the analytical schemes and the associated measurement quality objectives also will ensure that the radioanalytical data produced will be of known quality appropriate for the intended incident response decisions.

As with any technical endeavor, actual radioanalytical projects may require particular methods or techniques to meet specific measurement quality objectives. The document cannot address a complete catalog of analytical methodologies or potential radionuclides. Radiochemical methods to support response and recovery actions following a radiological or nuclear INS can be found in

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