Preliminary Uncertainty Analysis for the Doses Estimated Using the Techa River Dosimetry System–2000

The Mayak Production Association (MPA) was the first facility in the former Soviet Union for the production of plutonium. As a result of failures in the technological processes in the late 1940's and early 1950's, members of the public were exposed via discharge of about 10(17) Bq of liquid wastes into the Techa River (1949-1956). Residents of many villages downstream on the Techa River were exposed via a variety of pathways; the more significant included drinking of water from the river and external gamma exposure due to proximity to sediments and shoreline. The specific aim of this project is to enhance the reconstruction of external and internal radiation doses for individuals in the Extended Techa River Cohort. The purpose of this paper is to present the approaches being used to evaluate the uncertainty in the calculated individual doses and to provide example and representative results of the uncertainty analyses. The magnitude of the uncertainties varies depending on location and time of individual exposure, but the results from reference-individual calculations indicate that for external doses, the range of uncertainty is about a factor of four to five. For internal doses, the range of uncertainty depends on village of residence, which is actually a surrogate for source of drinking water. For villages with single sources of drinking water (river or well), the ratio of the 97.5th percentile-to 2.5th percentile estimates can be a factor of 20 to 30. For villages with mixed sources of drinking water (river and well), the ratio of the range can be over two orders of magnitude.