Paper TRANSURANIC ISOTOPES AND 90 Sr IN ATTIC DUST IN THE VICINITY OF TWO NUCLEAR ESTABLISHMENTS IN NORTHERN GERMANY I. Schmitz-Feuerhake,* J. W. Mietelski, † and P. Gaca † Abstract—Attic dust was chosen as the test medium in order to search for traces of man-made bone seeking alpha and beta emitters. The samples were taken from 5 houses in the community of Elbmarsch situated at the river Elbe, adjacent to the Krümmel nuclear power plant and the nuclear research center of Geesthacht. Five houses in other regions of northern Germany were taken as a control. 238 Pu, 239,240 Pu, 241 Am, and 244 Cm were measured by alpha spectrometry after chemical separation. Additionally, 241 Pu was measured by liquid scintil- lation spectrometry, and the fission product 90 Sr was measured in a separate investigation. All nuclides except 244 Cm showed activities above the detection limit in the Elbmarsch samples and an elevated mean concentration compared to the control. It can be concluded from the activity ratio 241 Am/ 239,240 Pu that the Elbmarsch contamination cannot be accounted for by the background levels of transuranic nuclides resulting from weapons fallout. The derived release of alpha emitters is assumed to have contributed to the induction of a leukemia cluster in children, which was observed in Elbmarsch between 1990 and 1996. Health Phys. 84(5):599 – 607; 2003 Key words: environmental impact; 241 Am; inhalation; leuke- mia INTRODUCTION THE COMMUNITY of Elbmarsch consists of a chain of several small villages located at the southern bank of the river Elbe, about 35 km southeast of Hamburg. In 1990, a leukemia cluster appeared in children living there (Hoffmann et al. 1997). Most cases up to now occurred in the village Tespe, lying opposite to the nuclear research center Gesellschaft fu ¨r Kernenergieverwertung in Schiffbau und Schiffahrt (GKSS), established in 1958 (Fig. 1). West of GKSS, at a distance of about 1.5 km, a nuclear power plant named Kernkraftwerk Kru ¨mmel (KKK) began full operation in 1984. It is equipped by a 1,300 MWel boiling-water reactor. The primary initial project of the GKSS was re- search and development on the harnessing of nuclear power for commercial ships. In the eighties, the center was engaged in several research programs on nuclear reactor safety and the development of components for nuclear power plants. It was equipped with two nuclear research reactors of 5 and 15 MW capacities. In 1990, about 1,500 children under the age 15 y lived in the Elbmarsch community. According to the Childhood Cancer Registry for West Germany, one leukemia case would have been expected there in 15 y. However, five cases appeared between 1990 to 1991. Four additional cases occurred by 1996 in the 5-km area surrounding KKK. In the period 1990 to 1996, the incidence of childhood leukemia in that region was elevated by a factor of 5.6 (Schmitz-Feuerhake et al. 1997). All affected children were less than 11 y old at time of the diagnosis, and five were below 5 y of age. Because of the temporal correspondence between the start-up of KKK and the appearance of the leukemia cases—regarding known latencies for radiation-induced malignancy—the suspicion arose that non-permitted emissions of the plant might be responsible for the induction of the diseases. The supervising ministry, however, claimed undisturbed operation for KKK, the two research reactors, and the experimental facilities of GKSS and denied any relevant environmental contami- nation. Analyses of the environmental monitoring data were also carried out by members of an expert committee, officially appointed to identify possible causes of the observed health effect. They registered several increases of fission and activation products between 1984 and 1990 (Schmitz-Feuerhake et al. 1996; Schmidt et al. 1998). Biological dosimetry for 21 adults living in Elbmarsch showed a significant elevation of dicentric chromosomes (Schmitz-Feuerhake et al. 1997). * University of Bremen, Department of Physics, PO Box 330440, 28209 Bremen, Germany; † The Henryk Niewodniczan ˜ski-Institute of Nuclear Physics, Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Krako ´w, Poland. For correspondence or reprints contact: I. Schmitz-Feuerhake, Parkallee 87, Bremen 28209, Germany, or email at ingesf@ uni-bremen.de. (Manuscript received 8 March 2002; revised manuscript received 19 September 2002, accepted 10 December 2002) 0017-9078/03/0 Copyright © 2003 Health Physics Society 599