Berkeley -- A fire at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory could release far more radioactive tritium than the lab has estimated, according to preliminary findings of an outside study sponsored by the City of Berkeley.
The radiation dose from a fire to a hypothetical "female jogger" next to the lab's fence could be hundreds of times greater than the federal recommended level for a year's exposure, says the report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research of Heidelberg, Germany.
The city released the 52-page study yesterday.
The health threat posed by the increased risk, if confirmed, was not spelled out in the technical report, which urged further study of the issue.
Lab spokesman Ron Kolb said that the study's analysis appeared to be flawed and that the lab stood by its findings that the risk to the public would be small "even in the worst-case scenario."
Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used at the lab as a marker in drug research, has been a sore point for several years, particularly since the so-called National Tritium Labeling Facility sits near the popular Lawrence Hall of Science.
A citizens group called the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste has long urged government agencies to close the lab, citing tritium leaks from the lab, residue in the surrounding environment and the threat of a major accident.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency and state and local regulatory bodies have all participated in monitoring and investigating the lab. None has found evidence of a significant health risk.
The Berkeley City Council has twice voted in favor of shutting the facility down, largely because it is located in a fire, earthquake and landslide hazard zone near residential areas. But the council votes are not binding because the lab is owned by the federal Department of Energy and is administered by the University of California.
The City Council hired an independent expert, Bernd Franke of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, to conduct a $30,000 preliminary analysis and present three reports. Yesterday's report was the second, and the third is expected sometime next year.
The fire risk was only a small portion of the document released yesterday, but it seemed to be the finding most at odds with the position taken by the lab. The report did not indicate potential serious risks from the low-level leaks of tritium at the lab, but it said the lab needed better monitoring.
Franke called for a more comprehensive, independent evaluation to assess actual tritium exposure and risk.
Franke said preliminary analysis indicated that the lab's claims about maximum exposures "may be false." He said a jogger 41 meters -- about 123 feet
--from a lab fire could get a dose between 2,900 and 18,000 millirems of tritium -- "600 to 3,700 times larger" than the dose calculated by the lab.
The EPA recommends a maximum exposure of 10 millirems per year, about the same as a chest X-ray, though it allows exposures of up to 5,000 millirems for workers in nuclear power plants. The risk of getting cancer from a one-time exposure of 18,000 millirems would be about 7 in 1,000, said Mike Bandrowski, EPA radiation program manager in San Francisco.
City Council member Polly Armstrong, whose district includes the lab, said she supported the tritium research but wanted it done outside "a fire zone, earthquake zone and landslide zone in a residential area."
Pamela Sihvola of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste, said, "The catastrophic consequences are endless in this situation."
Lab spokesman Kolb said the study's apparent assumptions about the concentrations of tritium that could be released and the presence of joggers next to the fence in a major fire were unfounded.
E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com
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