Clean Air Act Assessment Package-1988 Research Articles

Oak Ridge Reservation Environmental Protection Rad Neshaps Radionuclide Inventory Web Database and Rad Neshaps Source and Dose Database.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated national emission standards for emissions of radionuclides other than radon from US Department of Energy facilities in Chapter 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 61, Subpart H. This regulatory standard limits the annual effective dose that any member of the public can receive from Department of Energy facilities to 0.1 mSv. As defined in the preamble of the final rule, all of the facilities on the Oak Ridge Reservation, i.e., the Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, East Tennessee Technology Park, and any other U.S. Department of Energy operations on Oak Ridge Reservation, combined, must meet the annual dose limit of 0.1 mSv. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there are monitored sources and numerous unmonitored sources. To maintain radiological source and inventory information for these unmonitored sources, e.g., laboratory hoods, equipment exhausts, and room exhausts not currently venting to monitored stacks on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory campus, the Environmental Protection Rad NESHAPs Inventory Web Database was developed. This database is updated annually and is used to compile emissions data for the annual Radionuclide National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (Rad NESHAPs) report required by 40 CFR 61.94. It also provides supporting documentation for facility compliance audits. In addition, a Rad NESHAPs source and dose database was developed to import the source and dose summary data from Clean Air Act Assessment Package-1988 computer model files. This database provides Oak Ridge Reservation and facility-specific source inventory; doses associated with each source and facility; and total doses for the Oak Ridge Reservation dose.

Comparison of CAP88 PC Ver. 3.0 and MAXDOSE Dose Assessment Models Involving Co-located Stack Releases at the Savannah River Site

The Savannah River National Laboratory's Environmental Dosimetry Group performs dosimetry assessments for Savannah River Site (SRS) radionuclide air emissions utilizing the Clean Air Act Assessment Package-1988 (CAP88) code (CAP88 PC Ver. 3.0) and the MAXDOSE-SR Ver. 2011 code, which is an SRS-specific version of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's MAXIGASP code. CAP88 PC and MAXDOSE-SR are used at SRS for demonstrating compliance with Environmental Protection Agency dose standards for radionuclide emissions to the atmosphere and Department of Energy Order 458.1 dose standards, respectively. During a routine comparison of these two assessment models, it was discovered that CAP88 PC Ver. 3.0 was not producing the expected results when using multiple co-located stacks in a single run. Specifically, if the stack heights are considered separately, the results for several radionuclides (but not all) differ from the combined run [i.e., 1 + 2 does not equal (1+2)]. Additionally, when two or more stack heights are considered in a run, the results depend on the order of the selected stack heights. For example, for a two stack-height run of 0 meter and 61 m input produces different results from a 61 m and 0 m input run. This study presents a comparison of CAP88 PC Ver. 3.0 and MAXDOSE-SR Ver. 2011 based on SRS input data and on two-stack release scenarios. The selected radionuclides for this study included gases/vapors (H, C, Kr, and I) and particulates (Sr, Cs, Pu, and Am) commonly encountered at SRS.

A Comparison of Dose Results from the Clean Air Act Assessment Package-1988, Personal Computer (CAP88-PC), Version 3 to Previous Versions*

Computer software packages approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), including CAP88-PC, are used by U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) sites to demonstrate compliance with the radionuclide air emission standard under the Clean Air Act. CAP88-PC version 3, was approved by the U.S. EPA in February 2006 for use by U.S. DOE facilities. Version 3 incorporates several major changes that have the potential to affect calculated doses relative to calculations using earlier versions. This analysis examined the types and magnitudes of changes to dose estimates for specific radionuclides calculated using the version 3 software compared with the previous versions. For parent radionuclides and for the total dose from radionuclide chains, total effective dose calculated with version 3 was compared to effective dose equivalent calculated with previous versions. Various comparisons were also performed to determine which of the updates in version 3 accounted for changes in overall dose estimates. CAP88-PC version 3 would produce substantially different results relative to previous versions of the code for a number of radionuclides, including some isotopes that may be present at U.S. DOE facilities, as well as those used for industrial and medical applications. In general, doses for many radionuclides were lower using version 3 but doses for a few key radionuclides increased relative to the previous versions.

ASSESSMENT OF RADIONUCLIDE DATABASES IN CAP88 MAINFRAME VERSION 1.0 AND WINDOWS-BASED VERSION 3.0

In this study the radionuclide databases for two versions of the Clean Air Act Assessment Package-1988 (CAP88) computer model were assessed in detail. CAP88 estimates radiation dose and the risk of health effects to human populations from radionuclide emissions to air. This program is used by several U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facilities to comply with National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants regulations. CAP88 Mainframe, referred to as version 1.0 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site (http://www.epa.gov/radiation/assessment/CAP88/), was the very first CAP88 version released in 1988. Some DOE facilities including the Savannah River Site still employ this version (1.0) while others use the more user-friendly personal computer Windows-based version 3.0 released in December 2007. Version 1.0 uses the program RADRISK based on International Commission on Radiological Protection Publication 30 as its radionuclide database. Version 3.0 uses half-life, dose, and risk factor values based on Federal Guidance Report 13. Differences in these values could cause different results for the same input exposure data (same scenario), depending on which version of CAP88 is used. Consequently, the differences between the two versions are being assessed in detail at Savannah River National Laboratory. The version 1.0 and 3.0 database files contain 496 and 838 radionuclides, respectively, and though one would expect the newer version to include all the 496 radionuclides, 35 radionuclides are listed in version 1.0 that are not included in version 3.0. The majority of these has either extremely short or long half-lives or is no longer in production; however, some of the short-lived radionuclides might produce progeny of great interest at DOE sites. In addition, 122 radionuclides were found to have different half-lives in the two versions, with 21 over 3 percent different and 12 over 10 percent different.