Radiation Videos

Field Tests and Demonstrations



BEST/MATRR began our Community Radiation Monitoring Project aka Radiation Detectives in the fall of 2012 with a training session led by Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) director, Lou Zeller. Our local group has established 50 monitoring sites surrounding and downwind of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in north Alabama, 28 miles west of Huntsville's city center; and we are increasing monitoring of Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant in Tennessee, which is about 18 miles north of Chattanooga.


Our group is fortunate to have a highly trained specialist in nuclear contamination and medical response, Garry Morgan, as our project director and monitoring trainer. Garry has assembled, utilized and maintained our equipment kits, and has expanded our methods over numerous field testing sessions, incorporating his training and studies of Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and State Radiation Health Control protocols.


Garry Morgan is also the group videographer and has carefully documented many of our monitoring efforts, which may prove helpful to those beginning their own monitoring projects. Garry offers in-the-field training for groups across the country, only charging for expenses, if you want to begin monitoring radiation in your area.


5/8/13

'HOT RAIN' Event 70 MILES DOWNWIND of Browns Ferry - Nov 12, 2012



Rain in Scottsboro on this Veterans Day has brought a "hot rain" to the "boro." Radiation builds up in the atmosphere, rain washes the radiation out, events such as this are called "rain-out" events. Since the radiation dissipated rapidly after the rain, was the radiation Radon or other? Radon's half life is slightly over 3 days, this radionuclide's half life was shorter than one hour.

Radon daughters: the concentration of radon gas and its decay products depends greatly on temperature and weather patterns. When the air is cooler, or when there is an inversion layer "holding down" air near the ground, there can be a higher concentration of radon gas and its decay products -- especially Lead-214 and Bismuth-214, which are strong gamma and beta emitters and are quite radioactive. Other weather conditions can cause large variations as well, especially rain. Rain washes the radon progeny out of the air. So when it rains, there should generally be a short spike in the gamma and beta counts followed by a period of lower counts.
http://www.radonserv.com/message.asp?...

There may be other radionuclides present such as Iodine 131 or Iodine 135 and their progenies. Without spectrographic analysis it is not possible to identify the specific offending radionuclide.

Monitoring during the rain event demonstrated elevated airborne count readings at 1 meter in excess of 100 counts per minute (CPM) as reflected on the Radiation Network dot com.Ground readings were higher than 150CPM.

Windows Media Video (WMV) Production by Garry Morgan. WMV system license for background music usage.

This is a non-profit radiation monitoring project by the members of BREDL/BEST/MATRR. For more information: http://www.matrr.org

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