Science Notebook: Radiation Emergency Response – From the Field
About the author: Gregg Dempsey is an EPA Radiological Emergency
Response Team commander and has been with EPA more than 21
years. His job involves being an internal consultant to EPA on
radiation issues and being a field response person for radiation
emergencies. If you’ve ever worried about some of the strange
new terms that have been in the media since September 11, 2001,
like ‘dirty bomb’, ‘radiation dispersal device’ and ‘improvised
nuclear device’, you’re not alone. I worry about them too. But
my worry is probably a little different than yours; I am part of
a group of people who might have to monitor and cleanup the
radiation from these types of events. EPA deals with small
radiation problems across the country all the time. They range
from transportation accidents to cleanup at abandoned
facilities. We work well with our state and local counterparts,
and other Federal agencies to get the job done and remove
dangerous radiation from our env