By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Past and ongoing efforts to address radium contaminated sites in Pennsylvania, which influenced future protocols and uses for radium around the world, will be discussed as part of a Herbert M. Parker lecture that will take place at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21, via YouTube.

The lecture will be presented live on the Washington State University Tri-Cities YouTube channel at . It is free and open to the public.

David J. Allard, director of the Pennsylvania State Bureau of Radiation Protection, will address the historical benefits of radium, as well as its health effects on workers and members of the public. The presentation will also illustrate how the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has led in radium-related research and controls, including the ongoing efforts to monitor and mitigate radon in buildings from natural-occurring radium in soil, as well as a recent extensive evaluation of radium that returns with oil and gas production.

“David will address the question of whether radium has been a miracle or a menace,” said Wayne Glines, president of the board of trustees for the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. “Radium has had many benefits in treating cancer and other areas, but it has also served as a detriment in others. This presentation will provide a great look into the origins of the use of radium and its impact on our world.”

As the Pennsylvania state director for the Bureau of Radiation Protection, Allard is responsible for accelerator, X-ray, environmental surveillance, nuclear safety, radiological emergency response, radioactive materials, decommissioning and site clean-up, low-level radioactive waste and radon programs. He is the governor’s official liaison to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and technical lead on oil and gas radium, as well as industry-generated naturally and technologically-enhanced radioactive material issues.

To learn more about the Parker Foundation and the lectures, visit

 

Media contacts:

Wayne Glines, president of the board of trustees for the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, 509-366-8382 (cell), wglines34@charter.net

Maegan Murray, ���سԹ� director of marketing and communication, 619-403-3617 (cell), maegan_murray@wsu.edu

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Luiz Bertelli, internal dosimetrist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, will speak on a radiological incident that occurred in Goiânia, Brazil, that led to four deaths and how officials dealt with the incident, as part of a Herbert M. Parker Lecture Series on Oct. 21.

The presentation will take place from 5 p.m. – 6 p.m. via the Washington State University Tri-Cities YouTube channel at . During the event, attendees will be welcome to ask questions via the chat function as part of the YouTube stream.

The free public presentations are offered by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation in partnership with ���سԹ�.

What happened in Goiânia?

In late 1985, a private radiotherapy institute located in Goiânia moved to a new facility, taking their cobalt-60 teletherapy unit, but leaving in place a cesium-137 unit, without notifying the Brazilian licensing authority as required by law. The old building was then partly demolished, but left the cesium- 137 source unsecured.

On Sept. 13, 1987, two people entered, found some scrap metal value, removed the source assembly from the radiation head, took it home and tried to dismantle it. As a result, the source was ruptured, causing environmental contamination and external and internal exposure of several persons. Four people died due to very high radiation doses.

This lecture will describe how the accident was discovered, how it has evolved, and how it was controlled, according to official sources in the literature. It will also include personal experiences by Bertelli, who participated as a lead member of the radiation dose assessments team, as well as aspects of individual monitoring and medical care to the victims.

���سԹ� the speaker

Bertelli has worked in internal dosimetry modeling and interpretation of monitoring of radiation workers for over 40 years, including 18 years in Brazil. He has worked as an internal dosimetrist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2013 and previously worked at Argonne National Laboratory. Bertelli has been a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) since 2019, and served on NCRP’s Program Area Committee 6 on Radiation Measurements and Dosimetry since 2013.

Bertelli previously served as a member of Committee 2 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection from 2013 to 2017, and has been a member of the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registry’s Scientific Advisory Committee since 2018.

To learn more about the Parker Foundation and the lectures, visit .

 

Media contacts:

Wayne Glines, president of the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, 509-366-8382 (cell), wglines34@charter.net

Maegan Murray, ���سԹ� assistant director of marketing and communication, 619-403-3617 (cell), maegan_murray@wsu.edu

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Bruce Napier, a senior scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will discuss his work regarding the Mayak plutonium production site in Russia, which has many similarities to the Hanford Site in Richland, as part of a lecture at 5 p.m. on Oct. 30 in the Washington State University Tri-Cities East Auditorium.

Napier has been a principal investigator for several U.S.-Russian Joint Coordinating Committee on Radiation Effects Research projects, which have sponsored studies estimating radiation doses that were received by individuals or populations, as well as epidemiological studies around the Mayak plutonium production site.

Napier will discuss the history of the Mayak site and point out parallels and contrasts with the Hanford Site for his lecture at ���سԹ�. He will also describe the radiation doses received by more than 28,000 workers at Mayak and the 60,000 members of the nearby public exposed to atmospheric and river-borne releases of radioactive materials along the Techa River in Russia, in addition to the results of the associated health studies.

Napier works on the development and operation of models concerned with the environmental transport of radiological and chemical contaminants. His expertise and experience lie in the areas of radiation dose reconstruction, computer modeling, environmental analysis and human health risk analysis.

Napier was also the chief scientist for the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project that evaluated releases from the Hanford Site before becoming a principal investigator for the U.S.-Russian Joint Coordinating Committee on Radiation Effects Research.

He is a scientific vice president of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, a fellow of the Health Physics Society and a member of the U.S. Delegation to the United National Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiation.

This free public presentation is part of the Herbert M. Parker Lecture Series sponsored by Herbert M. Parker Foundation, which partners with ���سԹ�.

 

Media contacts:

Wayne Glines, president of the board of trustees for the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, 509-366-8382, wglines34@charter.net

Maegan Murray, ���سԹ� public relations specialist, 509-372-7333, maegan_murray@wsu.edu