Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction Project
The Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction Project was conducted from late 1994 to early 1999. SRA, Inc. was a subcontractor to the prime contractor, McLaren/Hart-Chemrisk. This team of scientists and engineers performed detailed dose reconstruction analyses focused on past releases of radioactive iodine, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) released from the US government complexes on the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) and radionuclides released from White Oak Creek to the Clinch River. SRA staff were responsible for the following activities:
- Responsible for establishing the source term resulting from the historical processing of irradiated uranium for the purpose of RaLa production at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory between 1944 and 1956 as part of the ongoing Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction project. This effort has included modeling of the production piles at both the X-10 and Hanford sites to establish power distributions; numerous calculations of fuel slug inventories using the ORIGEN2.1 code and modeling of the chemical separations process to establish release fractions. Stochastic (Monte Carlo) techniques are being employed as a means of establishing the uncertainties associated with these calculations.
- Responsible for management and performance of the systematic document review effort that is part of the ongoing Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction project. This effort includes development of work plans to ensure a comprehensive review of potentially relevant references at all of the records repositories that contain historical records for the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) facilities. In addition to providing oversight of this effort (including on-site coordination), SRA is also responsible for performing the majority of the review work that has been and will be conducted under this ongoing effort.
- Supported the development of the uranium source term from historical operations at ORR facilities as part of the ongoing Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction project. Performed calculations to establish historical releases from the K-25 purge cascade and from the S-50 thermal diffusion plant. Conducted novel analyses using extreme value distributions and other probabilistic approaches to establish frequency distributions for important parameters in cases where needed data were not available.
