INVESTIGATIONS OF RADIONUCLIDES IN THE AQUEOUS SEDIMENT ENVIRONMENT SURROUNDING A COAL BURNING POWER-PLANT

The aqueous sediments collected from five lakes surrounding a coal bur ning electric power plant facility in southwest Houston have been inve stigated for radionuclide contents of K-40, Cs-137 and daughter produc ts of U-238 and Th-232 using a non-destructive direct counting techniq ue. Twenty to twenty-five centimeter thick cores that were cut into fo ur centimeter segments were analyzed to study the variation of concent ration of radionuclide with increase in depth. This investigation show s that concentrations of radionuclide either remains constant or sligh tly decrease with increase in depth of the sediments. It further sugge sts that slightly higher levels of concentration close to the surface could be due to the new releases of the nuclides from coal fired power plant,and or which represents fall out from nuclear test weapons or i ndustrialization.