Comparison of the Radiation Level Measured by Physical Dosimeters Located in the Tatra Mountains and at the Control Sites

One of the aims of the NATO Advanced Training Course ‘RADIPER’ (http://natoatcradiper.org.pl) was to demonstrate also a possibility of recognizing an environmental risk by physical measurements. The Valley of the White (Dolina Białego) is an excellent example of mountain beauty situated in wooded sections of the Tatra Mountains. The half way to the top of the Valley are mouth of the cave with gratings installed. This cave, the former uranium mining drift entrance, is one of the remain of the past exploration, that was carried out in the Valley until the sixties of previous century. The main aim of the trip to the Valley of the White was to find out if any increase in radioactivity level can be detected in the Valley of the White (Dolina Białego) or its neighbourhood that should be considered as a potential health risk to tourists or the forest men. For that purpose, one month before that Course, the environmental TLD dosimeters (in the form of pellets) were installed in several sites in the Valley of the White, including two caves. During the excursion the TLD dosimeters were collected and gamma dose rates H*(10) were measured using GammaTRACER monitor (Genitron GmbH) with a 2-minute registering cycle. The GammaTRACER monitor detector was also used to register gamma dose rate inside two mining drifts investigated in the Valley. The values of H*(10) along the Valley of the White ranged between 100 nSv/h and 120 nSv/h, demonstrating no significant increase of radiation levels along the tourist’s path. The average value of H*(10) in one cave (former drift, that are not accessible to the public) mounted to 1636 nSv/h with the maximum value of 4144 nSv/h. A good agreement between results of measurements performed with two types of detectors was observed.