DOE Mayak Worker Study Occupational Dose Characteristics

I. Teplyakov¹; M.V. Gorelov¹; E.K. Vasilenko¹; O. Alexandrova²; J.J. Fix³; and R.I. Scherpelz³ (¹Mayak Production Association; ²University of Ekaterinberg; ³Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

The Russian Mayak Production Association is the facility, similar to Hanford in the United States, where plutonium for the first Russian nuclear bomb was generated in the late 1940s. Mayak has a long history of pioneering accomplishments regarding reactor, radiochemical, and plutonium chemical-metallurgical facility design, construction and operation; and capabilities to detect, measure and control worker radiation exposure. The historical trend in radiation protection guidelines in Russia is similar to those in the US, and closely follows international guidelines. However, Mayak operations, in post world war II conditions with limited resources, involved relatively high levels of external and internal radiation exposure to workers certainly in comparison with experience at Hanford and also in comparison to international radiation protection guidelines. Mayak worker doses typically ranged from about 0.1 to 10 Sv (10 to 1000 rem) per year during the period of 1948 - 1960. A database containing 725,657 records of individual dosimeter doses has been analyzed to evaluate the magnitude of worker exposure in selected intervals ranging as high as 100R per day. The Mayak facility has extensive medical, work history and dosimetry documentation that is being used to prepare dosimetry analysis files to be used in upcoming epidemiological analyses. This paper presents results of detailed analyses of recorded doses for Mayak workers according to exposure level, position/work location and date. * Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Health Studies. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle Memorial Institute under DOE Contract DE-AC06-76RLO 1830.

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