Saxton: Radiological Site Survey
Radiological Site Survey
December 2001
SRA was asked to perform a Radiological Site Survey of the Saxton Facility by GPU. The first phase of the survey, which involved surveying the outer area around the plant, was completed in December, 2001. The second phase of the survey will occur in late 2002. The Phase I survey, which was completed in about ten days, resulted in 10,000 in situ measurements distributed over fifteen acres of land. SRA’s automated scanning spectrometer system, called the Subsurface Multi-spectral Contamination Monitor (SMCM), was an essential tool for the successful completion of this survey.
The site had a coal-fired and power plant. Ash deposits from the coal-fired plant resulted in highly elevated and highly variable background radiation fields from naturally occurring nuclides. This condition represented an extreme challenge and made attaining the desired detection limit problematic. SRA’s use of the mathematical methods used for sonar signal processing, called spectral components, provided the unique capability to virtually remove the influence of the naturally occurring background radiation from the measurements. The measurements indicated that with few exceptions, the site-wide concentration of Cs-137 was 0.3 +/- 0.15 pCi/g, a value similar to those attributed to fallout levels. These results are an order of magnitude lower than the performance requirements dictated by the LTP for Saxton.
