Detection of radon decay products in rainwater

The Argonne National Laboratory-East (ANL-E) Environmental Radiation Monitoring System measures and records ambient radiation levels and provides detection capability for radon decay products in rain clouds. These decay products in rainwater tracked into a facility on the shoes of workers can cause false alarms from hand and shoe monitors. The monitors at ANL-E can easily detect the radon decay products, and the 19.6 and 26.8 min half-lives of the beta-particle emitters are long enough in many cases for sufficient activity to still be present to initiate a contamination alarm when the shoes are checked for radioactivity. The Environmental Radiation Monitoring System provides a warning when precipitation contains elevated levels of radon decay products. It is based on a prototype developed at the Super Collider Laboratory. During its first year of operation there were nine alarms from radon decay products with an alarm trigger point set at 30% greater than background. The alarms occurred at both monitoring stations, which are approximately 1,000 m apart, indicating large diameter radon clouds. The increases in background were associated with low atmospheric pressure. There was no correlation with radon released from the coal-burning steam plant on the site. Alarms also occurred when short-lived accelerator-produced radioactivity in the exhaust stack plume passed over the NaI(Tl) detector in one of the stations. The 450 MeV proton accelerator near the station produced 12C, 13N, and 15O by spallation of air nuclei. The gamma-ray spectrum from the plume from the accelerator exhaust stack was dominated by the 511 keV annihilation gamma rays from decay of these radionuclides. These gamma rays were easily distinguished from the 609 keV, 1,120 keV, and 1,764 keV gamma rays emitted by the radon decay products.