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Setting Cleanup Standards to Protect Future Generations:

The Scientific Basis of the Subsistence Farmer Scenario and Its Application
to the Estimation of Radionuclide Soil Action Levels (RSALs) for Rocky Flats

By: Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. and Sriram Gopal

A report prepared for the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Boulder, Colorado
by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

December 2001

Press Release and Statements | PDF version of entire report [312KB; 53 pages]

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Summary and Recommendations
Principal finding
Principal recommendation
Other findings
Other recommendations

1. Introduction

2. The concept of the critical group and the maximally exposed individual

3. Description of the subsistence farmer scenario

4. International use of the subsistence farmer approach

5. Reasonableness of the subsistence farmer scenario on occupational grounds

6. Relation of the subsistence farmer scenario to Radionuclide Soil Action Levels (RSALs) at Rocky Flats

7. Erosion of the subsistence farmer scenario

8. The Radioactive Wildlife Refuge

9. Enforcement for the eons

10. Conclusions and Recommendations

11. References

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December 2001
PDF posted February 2002