[dmwood]

Pu in soil within the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge contributes (NIST soil standard data) about 0.8% of total soil radioactivity. Remembering that 239Pu emits almost no gamma rays, it's no surprise that annual doses from soil inhalation plus ingestion give 50 year doses of less than 0.1 milliSievert. By contrast, ANNUAL doses from background radiation around RF are about 1850 times larger, and a chest X-ray is about 25 milliSieverts. Scope out rockyflatsneighbors.org for actual reliable Rocky Flats data. Former Rocky Flats workers contributed more than any other non-Soviet group to knowledge of biological effects of Pu on humans.

[gdmt]

A chest X ray is about 0.1 mSv.

[dmwood]

Yes. Thanks. The link below has the most up to date comprehensive diagram of typical doses. For the uninitiated: the 'relative biological effectiveness' of photons (X rays, gamma rays) is typically taken to be one; by contrast, for alpha particles it is generally taken to be 20 since they dump much more energy per unit path length than do photons.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/01/f46/doe-ioni...

[TEP_Kim_Il_Sung]

A chest X ray doesn't get inhaled, to provide a constant 0.1 mSv internally for the next 15 years or up to 24,000 years.

[Maursault]

> or up to 24,000 years.

On the one hand, it's a lot of radiation, but on the other hand, that's a very long time to live. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

[concordDance]

That's smaller than the difference between nearby towns far from nuclear power plants. Its not something even worth the mental space to think about when deciding where to move to.

A very slightly worse school will likely have a much bigger effect on your kids life expectancy.