Chapter 20
Remediation
When the smoke has settled and the dust has cleared—when the emergency phase
has ended—attention will turn to restoring access to the affected areas. This will
almost certainly include remediating the contaminated areas (unless the nuclide(s)
used are short-lived), but the remediation is not the first step; before remediation
and cleanup can begin, there must be some agreed-upon basis for the remediation,
as well as an agreement as to whether or not the same standards should be used
everywhere (homes, parks, parking lots, and so forth). In the US, the Federal government has developed a bewildering welter of regulatory requirements that are relevant
to managing the aftermath of a radiological attack [2]. However, it has (as of this
writing) declined to recommend cleanup standards for the aftermath of a radiological
or nuclear attack in order to let the community(s) attacked choose standards that they
feel are appropriate; this might delay the eventual restoration of access and reoccupancy of the affected areas. In the short term, the final cleanup standards might
also affect the decontamination techniques used as well as decisions to decontaminate versus discard objects (or entire buildings) that are simply not worth the time
and cost of decontamination. This, in turn, can have an impact on the amount of
remediation waste generated as well as the eventual cost of remediation and waste
disposal.
20.1 Who Determines Remediation Standards?
The most fundamental question that must be answered when performing a decontamination is “When are we done?” Of course, this most fundamental question cannot
be answered until the “we”—the people answering this question—can be chosen.
One potential solution to this problem is for the national government to develop
remediation standards, aided (of course) by advisory committees comprised of
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
P. A. Karam, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism,
Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69162-2_20
245
Remediation
When the smoke has settled and the dust has cleared—when the emergency phase
has ended—attention will turn to restoring access to the affected areas. This will
almost certainly include remediating the contaminated areas (unless the nuclide(s)
used are short-lived), but the remediation is not the first step; before remediation
and cleanup can begin, there must be some agreed-upon basis for the remediation,
as well as an agreement as to whether or not the same standards should be used
everywhere (homes, parks, parking lots, and so forth). In the US, the Federal government has developed a bewildering welter of regulatory requirements that are relevant
to managing the aftermath of a radiological attack [2]. However, it has (as of this
writing) declined to recommend cleanup standards for the aftermath of a radiological
or nuclear attack in order to let the community(s) attacked choose standards that they
feel are appropriate; this might delay the eventual restoration of access and reoccupancy of the affected areas. In the short term, the final cleanup standards might
also affect the decontamination techniques used as well as decisions to decontaminate versus discard objects (or entire buildings) that are simply not worth the time
and cost of decontamination. This, in turn, can have an impact on the amount of
remediation waste generated as well as the eventual cost of remediation and waste
disposal.
20.1 Who Determines Remediation Standards?
The most fundamental question that must be answered when performing a decontamination is “When are we done?” Of course, this most fundamental question cannot
be answered until the “we”—the people answering this question—can be chosen.
One potential solution to this problem is for the national government to develop
remediation standards, aided (of course) by advisory committees comprised of
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
P. A. Karam, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism,
Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69162-2_20
245