Questions about working around " NORM "radioactive stuff??

Date 05-07-2012 23:10

New job I have, they deal a lot with oil field stuff and from what I learned today they had some stuff that were in these tanks and from what I understand when there drilling and pulling oil from the earth there is NORM in it which is Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. They had a Geiger counter testing how much radioactive waste is spewing off this metal object and it read a 30 and a 40 on the Geiger counter. I was told when these two metal structures came in they read a 70 which they shouldn't have even been offloaded off the truck. I was told today that you can safely work around this stuff if it is a reading of 20 and below and that leaving these metal objects in the sun de-energizes them is this true?

I've done a little reading about NORM but curious to know of any of you guys have experience with this and is this some pretty bad stuff. From what I read it sounded like years of exposure of it can be BAD. Like I said to the guys today I was like screw it don't tear this structural down let it de-energize more in the SUN but they were told to work on it anyway with the reading being 30 and 40. I would have walked off the job but am really ticked that no one told me anything about this stuff, all they have really talked about is H2S.

Any thoughts or advice??? I know so many you guys work in the oil field so figured be a great place to post.

Thanks
Chris

By CWI555

Date 05-07-2012 23:34

The H2S is more of a health threat than that.

By G.S.Crisi (****)

Date 05-08-2012 00:32

You are talking of two completely different things.
H2S (chemical name: hydrogen sulfide) is a poisonous gas that produces death when you breath it in large quantities. The gas itself is not poisonous, the death occurs because you're breathing H2S instead of the oxygen your body needs to stay alive. In small quantities it's harmless. Example: the smell of rotten eggs is due to the H2S they emit, and nobody got killed at smelling rotten eggs.

Radioactivity, on the other hand, is extremely dangerous. Small emissions won't kill you at once, but will be very harmful in the long run. Chernobyl survivors that weren't killed when the reactor exploded are feeling the consequences till now. That's why there's a maximum radioactivity persons can be exposed to, and there are strict safety conditions that must be followed by persons dealing with radioactivity (example: gamma rays operators in welding inspection).

Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brasil

By Chris2626 (***)

Date 05-08-2012 01:23

I need to do some more reading on this

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 05-08-2012 03:18

I don't know about "NORM", but if working around radiation, You should be wearing a tag that records Your exposure. It is really just a pirce of film in a dark enclosure that is "exposed" by the radiation. They develope the film to measure Your radiation exposure.

By eekpod

Date 05-08-2012 10:30 Edited 05-08-2012 11:09

Radioactive materials are varied and can be extremely complicated in regards to what isotopes /actual mineral you are dealing with is.
I've been an RT asst and had some training, and also I have been in the containment vessel diving in a nuclear reactor.
There are specially trained people and procedures to deal with this issue.
The reading on the gieger counter although at first sounds concerning, depends on what "scale" the unit was set on. They generally have three different readings they can be set to display. Think of it as a high, medium, and low setting. There are times when shooting a pipe with X-ray that we have the setting on the most sensitive (low) setting becasue we are standing away from the source and maintaining the boundry to keep others from walking into the danger zone. I might have 10-20 MR (milli rems) but if I turned the setting to read medium it might only say 1 mr so you have to be careful in what those numbers really mean.

Basically somebody out there needs to get someone who knows what to do and to protect the workers and the general public.
The other part is when particulates become airborne. It's the Alpha particles to be careful of. Then there's a entire different situation and whatever you do, don't get any of that dust on you or in your lungs, that could be bad.
Good luck

By rlitman (***)

Date 05-08-2012 16:10

> The reading on the gieger counter although at first sounds concerning, depends on what "scale" the unit was set on.

Exactly. Point a geiger counter up to the sky, and it will find some radiation.
Put it in a cave, and it will find some coming from the earth.
Go near a truckload of bananas or potatoes, and you'll find some too.

Have a look here, to give you a sense of scale.
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

By WeldinFool (**)

Date 05-08-2012 18:32

That's really cool, thanks for sharing. I think I just might pass that one along...

By Cumminsguy71 (*****)

Date 05-08-2012 21:22 Edited 05-09-2012 02:00

I know depending on the levels you are only supposed to be exposed for certain amounts of time. Like somebody said about Chernobyl and the incident in Japan after the Tsunami those guys were only supposed to be exposed for a hour or two then they had to be pulled out and another crew was sent in. Natural occuring radiation in bananas, fruits and vegetables I can deal with because it's natural. You throw "man" into the mix and we can create a stinking mess. Here's something I found,

http://www.quicktest.co.uk/geiger_counter.htm

I'd get educated with what your working with, I would if it was me, this way 10, 15 or 20 years from now your not doing the football player crying game and saying you had no idea you would actually get hurt.

By Chris2626 (***)

Date 05-09-2012 23:22

I agree I'm really not liking this sh*t not knowing and this mom and pop operation I don't really trust them at all. I wear a 3M respirator but still you get that dust on you you're taking it home. Some of these guys been around this stuff for 7 years working for this company and I bet there gonna have problems later. One guy told me someone asked him to sign a paper saying he knew he was around it and he said no and walked away.

By Cumminsguy71 (*****)

Date 05-10-2012 00:52

I wouldn't sign schmidt. That's the bad part about Mom and Pop's sometimes. They do things....well, they make YOU do things that you should not. I worked with a mechanical one time and they had asbestos insulation on some of the old pipes. They were wanting me to help pull the old piping out. Told them no way. They got their own guys to do it. I'm gonna die one day, I prefer later than earlier and a stroke or heart attack that kills me instantly is what I prefer not one of those slow agonizing deaths from some stuff like asbestos or something.

By Chris2626 (***)

Date 05-10-2012 02:24

I totally agree, hopefully I won't have to work on some of this stuff up close anyways, I still wonder about these vessels I'm working on to. This company builds and mostly refurbishes these systems that as there drilling for oil in the gulf they needs a way to seperate the oil from the water and when the water is filtered then it is dumped back into the Gulf Of Mexico. From what I understand and have heard from a few different people I work with these agitators when they come in there sometimes back with either old oil or old oil and this radiation dust known as NORM.

I had to work on a vessel pulling it apart a week ago and well now as I write this I wonder if those dam agitators were full of NORM, it really s*cks because i'm learning a ton about fitting but at the same time don't want to work here forever because of the long term effect. I know what we do for a living isn't the healthiest on our eyes and sometimes lungs if not wearing a respirator but h*ll I don't need anything else to help it out. This place seems to be big on safety but at the same time i think it's BS. I just hope I don't have to work on these agitators and if so I will ask about the NORM and if they say either work on them or pack your tools up then I maybe looking for another job. DAMMM it's always something.

By 46.00

Date 05-08-2012 10:52

http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/environmental/publications/norm.php