Op-Ed Article by LBNL Director Charles V. Shank

As Director of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, I am charged with ensuring that all Laboratory research programs fulfill the national mission of the U.S. Department of Energy and conform to all state and federal regulations designed to preserve the environment and protect our workers and our neighbors.

As a citizen and resident of the City of Berkeley, I expect nothing less.

That’s why the current public concern about emissions from Berkeley Lab’s National Tritium Labeling Facility is so troubling to me. A small group of concerned and vocal citizens has raised questions about public safety in the minds of some of the people of Berkeley and their government representatives. The people deserve answers, uncluttered by the misleading rhetoric that sometimes accompanies accusations of wrongdoing and deceit.

To that end, I have pledged $100,000 in Laboratory funds to support an independent third-party assessment which I believe will verify what we have firmly stated in response to these concerns -- the environmental levels of tritium from Berkeley Lab’s research activities are so minute and localized that they do not pose a threat to the health of our employees, our neighbors or our community.

After more than a year of discussions and data requests, the city-sponsored Tritium Issues Work Group has yet to develop a sampling plan. We are concerned about a process that is not responding to the fears of concerned citizens in a timely way. The Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health Services, co-chairs of the group, have encouraged additional site-specific sampling.

Radiation in the environment is a subject that we all take extremely seriously. In this case, the subject is tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen which emits low-energy beta particles. Small amounts of tritium are used in Berkeley Lab’s National Tritium Labeling Facility, funded by the National Institutes of Health, to "tag" molecules so that their functions and reactions can be traced. Such investigations are critical to the development of new drugs for treatment and cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s and breast cancer, among other research uses. The facility is used by universities, research laboratories, and pharmaceutical companies.

Tritium is a naturally occurring substance in the environment, resulting from the impact of cosmic rays on the earth’s atmosphere, and is also used in a variety of commercial products.

About 80 percent of the tritium used at Berkeley Lab’s labeling facility is recycled and reused. Most of the rest is captured on silica gel and safely packaged for storage and eventual disposal. Less than one percent of the total tritium inventory escapes to the environment, much in the way some fumes of gasoline are released when you fill your automobile tank. Over the past eight years, Berkeley Lab has reduced these stack emissions 10-fold through improvements in research techniques, filtering and storage adjustments, improved disposal methods, and redesign of equipment.

Since tritium is radioactive, its release must be carefully measured and monitored to ensure that quantities are within safe regulatory guidelines. Berkeley Lab aggressively and continuously monitors its air, water and soil. For years the results have been discussed in meetings with regulators and representatives of the City of Berkeley and shared broadly with the community.

The business of measuring and analyzing radioactivity can be very complicated. It’s a world of curies and picocuries and millirem, of half-lives and disintegrations. But here is the bottom line: yes, radioactivity is potentially dangerous and must be respected. But, as with most toxic substances in the world today, risk is dependent upon factors such as chemical structure, quantity, dose, period of exposure, toxicity, and persistence of the substance in the environment.

Berkeley Lab, applying scientifically validated formulas for calculating public dose under a variety of scenarios, has proven that the amounts of tritium emerging from the labeling facility are far, far below the limits established by federal and state regulators to ensure public health. Since 1995, the total emissions of tritium at Berkeley Lab translated to a maximum dose (0.2 millirem) that is a fraction of one percent of the total radiation exposure a typical Berkeley resident receives from natural and man-made sources.

For comparison -- a cross-country airplane round-trip will expose you to 38 times the maximum annual dose of radiation from the tritium lab. Also, living next to our labeling facility for a year would create a risk to you that is less than a hundredth the dose of a single dental x-ray.

Our air emissions, continuously sampled by the Lab and regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), result in an annual public dose that less than 2 percent of the EPA’s established safety limit near the facility itself; they’re even lower as you get further away from the building.

Our 1997 tritium health risk assessment, which was reviewed by three regulatory agencies, validated the safety of our labeling facility and confirmed our assurances about public health. The study was based on assumptions about human intake and exposure far greater than what we actually contribute. I am confident that the independent monitoring program will corroborate the Laboratory’s measurements and interpretations.

This may not appease those who argue against any health threshold and claim that even one molecule of radioactivity will do damage. But such opinions fly in the face of reality and the overwhelming scientific evidence upon which risk assessments and "safe dose" levels are based. Risks are part of life, whether it’s driving a car, flying in an airplane, or getting an x-ray. In a rational world, one survives and grows by managing risks intelligently.

For 65 years, we’ve been a good neighbor in the community with an impeccable record for health and safety. Berkeley Lab vows to maintain the highest standards of environmental quality in all of its work, because it’s the responsible thing to do.

Charles V. Shank is Director of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a multi-program lab doing unclassified research for the U.S. Department of Energy. It is managed by the University of California.

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