Every now and again something comes up that’s too new, too important, or too involved for the RSO to feel comfortable addressing; sometimes it’s just helpful to hear the opinion and advice of an outside expert. A new RSO might want a Certified Health Physicist to take a close look at the radiation safety program they inherited to find weak points and suggest how to fix them, while a company that wants to start using radioactivity might need help in drafting a license application and developing their radiation safety program. That’s where Nevada Technical Associates (NTA) consultants can lend a hand.
In addition to offering some of the most highly rated radiation safety courses in the US, NTA provides consulting services, whatever your needs and concerns might be. All of our scientists and consultants are Certified Health Physicists, most with advanced degrees, and with decades of professional experience; our staff have personal experience developing and managing radiation safety programs, developing instrument testing and calibration programs, identifying and fixing programmatic problems, and more.
Expertise offered by NTA includes:
• Drafting radioactive materials license applications
• Developing radiation safety programs
• Performing regulatory compliance audits
• Developing and delivering custom training courses
• Radiation safety program review and assessment
• Performing ALARA assessments and analysis
• Radiation shielding design
• Expert testimony
• Radiation sensor network design
A sampling of NTA’s consulting projects includes:
Oilfield services provider: NTA was contacted by a small company providing water treatment services for energy companies in the North Dakota oilfields.
These services produced waste, much of which was contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) that needed to be characterized so the wastes could be properly disposed of. NTA helped the company apply for and submit a radioactive materials license application, provided custom training to the client’s staff, and developed a novel method for assaying NORM concentrations in waste materials; a method that resulted in several patents.
Radioactive materials license to characterize and distribute irradiated gemstones: A large jewelry importer wished to add irradiated gemstones to their offerings (some gemstones are irradiated to enhance their color) and asked NTA to write license applications for both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and for their state regulators.
Although the regulators initially asked for procedures that would have required hiring a full-time radiochemist to analyze every irradiated gemstone, NTA was able to show that the same level of safety could be provided by analyzing a much smaller sample (less than 5%) of the irradiated gemstones using simple counting procedures and relatively inexpensive radiation detectors. NTA’s client received their radioactive materials licenses and have enjoyed good sales of these gemstones.
Medical research and treatment center – multiple projects: A large research hospital contacted NTA, asking for help dealing with elevated radiation levels in the hallway outside the room of a patient receiving radionuclide therapy for thyroid cancer.
NTA was quickly able to address their concerns and resolve the problem in what became the start of a relationship that lasted for nearly a decade. First, NTA was asked to audit the center’s Health Physics program, recommending both procedural and organizational changes aimed at making the radiation safety program more effective as well as helping to reduce costs.
The next request was to help the center to expand the scope of their radioactive materials license to allow expanding their use of radioactivity for both the research and medical sides of their organization as well as giving them more control over designating physicians allowed to prescribe radiopharmaceuticals and radiation therapy. This was followed by a request to help develop radiation safety procedures to be used during repairs to interlocks for a radiation therapy room, and more.
Several years later, one of NTA’s health physicists was delighted to be part of an audience, listening to one of the medical center’s health physicists describe some of the recent changes they’d made to improve their radiation safety program, noting NTA’s role in suggesting most of the changes and their positive impact.
Expert testimony: NTA experts are skilled in dose reconstruction, determining probability of causation, assessing organizational radiation safety programs, and more. To do this they draw upon decades of technical, scientific, field, and practical experience along with their expertise in environmental science, geology, radiation biology, and other scientific and technical fields.
NTA’s consulting clients include Boeing, Florida Power and Light, Westinghouse, the Panama Canal Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency, the states of New Mexico, West Virginia, South Carolina, Missouri, and California, and others.
Nevada Technical Associates also partners with Nuclear Technology Services, Inc., a full-service radiological laboratory located in Roswell, Georgia. This laboratory provides analytical services such as radiochemical analysis of environmental and bioassay samples for uranium, thorium, radium and many other radionuclides. The laboratory also performs a variety of services related to calibration of radiation monitoring equipment and also manufactures BOMAB phantoms.
Whatever you need help with, chances are that NTA can lend a hand. Email or call us to get started.