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Radioactive Wastes and their Significance in Stream Ecology
Author(s) -
Higgins Elmer
Publication year - 1950
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8659(1949)79[217:rwatsi]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - environmental science , tributary , population , ecology , radioactive waste , radionuclide , aquatic ecosystem , drainage , flora (microbiology) , population dynamics of fisheries , fish <actinopterygii> , waste management , biology , geography , fishery , physics , cartography , genetics , quantum mechanics , bacteria , engineering , demography , sociology
The problem of devising safe means for the disposal of radioactive wastes has long concerned the United States Atomic Energy Commission but no completely satisfactory solution has been found. The nature and sources of such wastes and methods of handling are reviewed. Aquatic organisms, perhaps more than any other group of organisms, are directly exposed to radiation hazard from the wastes of atomic energy operations and may be subjected to long‐continued low‐level exposure. The effect on organisms of such low‐level radiation, as a feature of the relatively constant environment, has received very little study owing, in part, to the difficulties of experimental observation. A tributary of the Clinch River, Tennessee drainage, which has been receiving minor quantities of radioactive wastes for some time and which contains an apparently normal flora and fauna including abundant plankton and a mixed warm‐water fish population has been selected for ecological study. Adjacent waters of the Tennessee drainage are unpolluted and, therefore, offer suitable areas for the comparison of conditions of life in contaminated waters. The principal problems to be investigated and the methods of ecological study, including quantitative changes in population‐composition and density, are outlined and progress in initiating the study is described. Radiation from radioactive wastes is a new element in the ecology of some streams which must be taken into account.