HomeMy WebLinkAboutUtility firms oppose reduced exposure limits 1981 34E The Houston Past /Sat., M
Rad exposure
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Ut fifirms oppose reduced li m i ts
By HAROLD SCARLE7.T in paper you can barely get to the con - hearings.
Post Environment Writer trol consoles." The Houston hearing is one of a n
Lapp said the total occupational expo - tionwide series that began in Washingt,
A lineup of electric utility companies sure from the U.S. nuclear industry and will continue in Chicago and &
at a public hearing Friday unanimously amounts to .08 million person -rem .a Francisco.
opposed a federal proposal to reduce year, compared to 22 million person -rem A second hearing session here
radiation exposure limits in work places. from medical radiation. Person -rem is a scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat
1
The utilities contended the current oe- measure of the collective dose to a day at the Dunfey Houston Hotel, 7G
cupational exposure guides, in effect population. Southwest Freeway.
since 1960, are fully protecting the health "Yet the human cell is blind to the An NRC hearing panelist, Robert
h►g Pa
of people working around nuclear source of radiation," Lapp said. Alexander, disputed the utilities' contE
materials. He suggested the government should tion that the nuclear industry is alrea
Their advice to a federal hearing concentrate more on reducing medical fully meeting the proposed 5 -rem yeas
panel was echoed by a Houston radio- radiation exposures. Spending in that exposure.
therapist, Dr. Vincent P. Collins, with a field, he said, is only a fraction of the The Washington hearing, he said, IA
homespun proverb: $100 million spent annually by the nu- told a traveling Westinghouse crew of :
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." clear industry to reduce radiation technicians has been averaging a 6-ro
One proposed new standard would do age' ro exposure exposure "year after year, decade aft
limit a worker's whole -body radiation proposed new P osure g uides decade.
dose to 5 rem a year. The current guides were developed by the Environmental
allow 3 rem per quarter, or a potential Protection Agency and other federal Alexander said the crew goes frc
rem a year. agencies. The hearing panel included plant to plant, working on Westinghoc
officials of the EPA, the Nuclear Regula- reactors during plant outages.
Utility officials contended their nu- tory Commission and the Occupational Dr. James R. Sumpter, nuclear se
clear power plants are already meeting Safety and Health Administration. ices manager for the Houston Lighting
the proposed new limit. But they said Allan C.B. Richardson, the EPA radia- Power Co., berated the EPA proposals
making it a regulatory requirement tion standards chief, said about 1.5 mil - "a hodgepodge" from conflicting studii
would increase operating costs and lion Americans annually are now ex- "If an industry is doing a good job,
administrative paperwork without any p to radiation in their jobs. don't see a need for new regulation:
benefit. He said half of these are in medical Sumpter said. "That's regulation 1
One utility spokesman, noted nuclear, work and only I percent in nuclear regulation's sake."
scientist Dr. Ralph Lapp, said nuclear power. But the nuclear industry, he said, Sumpter was speaking for HL&P a
plant control rooms are already "so deep so far has dominated testimony in the 41 other major U.S. utility companies.