Contamination with Cs-173 in the Czech Republic

[Milos]

Hello,

Our country is one of many European countries, which were hit by radioactive cloud after NPP Chernobyl accident. I was curious about residual contamination of our environment, so I decided to try to measure Cs-137 in mushrooms picked in our district, where I expected some chance to see tiny signal of Cs-137 due to ability of mushrooms to cumulate this kind of contamination. So it was not much surprising to see Cs-137 photopeak in a collected spectrum.


Story behind this experiment

What is more disturbing is the fact, that even higher signal of Cs-137 I measured in one of two samples of soil which I taken about 14 days ago at the place where we live.


Story behind this experiment

Results of my experiments are in good agreement with the results of our National Radiation Protection Institute. It is good to realize, that only one half-life of Cs-137 has passed, so nearly half of the contamination is still somewhere in the environment, mostly in upper layer of a soil. Only thing which keeps me calm is the fact, that radiation contribution of Cs-137 is still lower than of K-40 as can be clearly seen from the spectrum.

[Sesselmann]

Milos,

Thanks for sharing.

It sure looks like mushrooms do a good job of mopping up contaminated ground, maybe you can commercialise it :)

Steven

[Milos]

Hello Steven,

You are joking :), but there are real projects dealing with some plants, which have higher ability to accumulate cesium in their bodies. Problem is, where to deposit such an amount of contaminated biomass and time span for effective decontamination. Some information can be found here:

J Environ Qual. 2003 Nov-Dec;32(6):2272-9.
Uptake and release of cesium-137 by five plant species as influenced by soil amendments in field experiments.
Fuhrmann M1, Lasat M, Ebbs S, Cornish J, Kochian L.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14674551

Another problem is, that e.g. Amaranthus retroflexus used for this purpose is stubborn weed.