By: Melanie O’Neill
Radiological monitoring has taken place each year by the Mississippi State Department of Health Division of Radiological Health to test the levels of Tritium in the drinking water.
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of nitrogen. Since the beginning of the DRH Tatum Salt Dome Environmental program, tritium has been the radionuclide of major concern.
Project Dribble added 1,900 megacuries to the northern hemisphere alone according to the State Department of Health.
Tritium contains one hydrogen electron in its outer shell, one proton in its nucleus and two neutrons in the nucleus.
The next isotope of hydrogen is deuterium which contains one electron in its outer shell and one neutron in its nucleus according to the Mississippi State Department of Health Division of Radiological Health.
The second neutron in the nucleus of Tritium causes it to be radioactive.
This radioactive chemical decays at a half-life of 12.35 years. After this, the radioactive atoms present decay to half the number that was present at the beginning of the half-life according to Mississippi State Department of Health Division of Radiological Health.
There are also natural products in the environment that produce tritium such as cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere.
According the Miss. State radiological report, the upper atmosphere produces about six million curies, the unit for radioactivity, of tritium per year.
One unit of curie is the activity of a sample of radioactivity that is undergoing 2.22 million nuclear transformations per minute.
Before and during the blasts many residents were concerned about the dirt and radioactive material that would be blown into the environment.
If 20,000 pci of radioactive materials in drinking water were taken internally at the rate of two liters per day for a year it would equal the average annual concentration assumed to produce a total body dose equivalent of four milires per year according to the Mississippi State Department of Health Division of Radiological Health report in 1990.
“The average annual concentration of beta particles emitting man made radionuclides in drinking water shall not an annual dose equivalent to the total body or any internal organ greater than four milirem a year,” is stated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
This all means that if they found levels of tritium that were higher than 20,000 pci, the water would be considered “undrinkable.”
In 2000 the government built a water pipeline to give residents another way to get water and to help calm their fears.
The Mississippi State Department of Health Division of Radiological Health has stated that it is difficult to determine how much tritium is produced naturally by the environment and how much has been produced by the nuclear testing.
During a sampling in November of 1983, high levels of tritium were found near one several monitored locations.
The Mississippi State Department of Health Division of Radiological Health believed it was due to drier weather and installed an automated rain gage in February of 1992.
This began a special study by the Division of Radiological Health in order to take samples monthly.
Results of this special study have been fairly consistent and have shown a downward trend of tritium levels and the sampling was decreased from monthly to quarterly.