Anthropogenic Tritium In Some Ecosystems In South-Eastern Romania; A Continuous Effort For Education And Public Awareness

In Romania, since the commissioning of the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) at Cernavoda (U1 & U2), tritium is constantly measured in the environment, both on-site and in vicinities (from an area with 30 km around NPP). Having both cosmogenic and anthropogenic origin, this is the way to make the difference between the tritium radioactivity produced in atmosphere and as a result of human activities. Current surveillance activity for the presence of tritium in environment is provided by a dedicated laboratory of the nuclear power plant in Cernavoda. The fate of anthropogenic tritium in the environment is also one of the topics of interest for a research group at Horia Hulubei National R&D Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH) which, along the time, has undertaken a series of studies on the temporal evolution of tritium released in the environment by the nuclear activities, on its distribution and accumulation in different compartments of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In this respect, the present work shows the results of a five years study regarding the concentration levels of tritium measured in biotope (soil, surface and well water) and biota (spontaneous and cultivated vegetation, fish) samples, collected periodically in areas of influence and beyond them.