A study scheduled to be presented at a meeting of the Nevada Test Site Community Advisory Board May 6 shows the maximum possible exposure to a normal shipment of radioactive material -- from a truck parked at a rest area -- would be one-sixth the ordinary background radiation level in Nevada for a whole year.

Ruth Weiner, with Sandia National Labs, will present an assessment of the risks of exposure to shipments of radioactive material to the CAB at 6 p.m., May 6 at the Bob Ruud Community Center. She is part of a program named RADTRAN.

The average background dose of radiation in Nevada from non-Department of Energy activities is 400 millirems per year, Weiner states. A chest X-ray is about 15 millirems.

Weiner estimated a scenario in which a bystander was a little over a yard away from a truck parked at a rest area -- the longest possible exposure on the route -- would be at most 61 millirem.

Previous studies estimated the external dose from undamaged radioactive cargo was always less than the maximum allowed by law of 14 millirems per hour. Weiner said her study found the greatest external dose rate was 10 millirems per hour.

Weiner's report estimates collective doses to residents along the route and occupants of vehicles sharing the route would be one millirem or less. The average individual dose to a resident along the route varied from 0.000005 millirems to 0.0005 of a millirem.

The latest study states the average dose to the truck crew during the transportation would be about 2 millirems per hour.

Weiner concluded the risk of a resident being in a traffic accident along the southern route to the Nevada Test Site was 10 times greater than the likelihood of a latent cancer fatality from someone living along the route.

Weiner said 90 percent of the time a truck accident won't result in a release of material, but could cause radiation doses in the vicinity as the truck could be incapacitated for several hours.

"All that just points out there's a negligible risk from getting any death or illness from that shipment," Ted Oom, a Pahrump representative on the CAB said of the study.

But Oom hoped there would be more information in the study.

"I was a little disappointed. What she should've done is given us an individual risk factor for each route and then pick the route that had the least," Oom said.

Oom would like to see shipments from the test site routed down Highway 373 through Amargosa Valley to California Highway 127 instead of going along Highway 160 through Pahrump. He said there were over 300 shipments of low and mixed-low level nuclear waste in July, August and September of last year.

"If there is a serious accident, it makes a difference how many people live along that route," Oom said.