Depleted Uranium in the food chain at south of Iraq

Background: Depleted Uranium (DU) is uranium with low content of U 235 produced as a result of uranium enrichment. DU has high density (19.05 g /cm3), which is 2.54 more than Iron, so it’s high penetrating power makes it preferable as emanations with high penetration power. It was used in second Gulf ware in 1991 for first time. The radioactivity of soil, plants, fruit, meat, milk and water is measured using gamma ray spectroscopy. Material and Method: One hundred samples of soil, plants and tomato fruit were selected from the tomato farms near Basra city south of Iraq and 6 control samples from other farms not contaminated with depleted uranium (DU). Also samples of meats, milk and water were collected in January 2003. Radioactivity of these samples was measured using Gamma-ray spectrograph system with high purity Germanium detector with resolution of 2.2 keV at the energy of 1332.3 keV of Co-60. The system is connected to PC Pentium 111 with PCA program. Results: The measurements show that radiation equilibrium between 234Th and 226R existed with the range between (0.86-1.16) in uncontaminated soil samples. For contaminated soil samples radiation equilibrium between 234Th and Pa-234m existed with the range between (0.928- 0.956). The mathematical equations of Kosovo team were used. Results show that the soils of two farms were contaminated with (DU). The radioactivity of 226R for plants ranging from 5.97 to 7.26 and for tomato fruits samples between 9.16 to 12.4Bq/kg. Comparing these values with the control radioactivity which range between 6.25 to 7.34 for fruits and 13.3 to 13.9 Bq/kg for plants indicate that these samples were not contaminated with DU. Conclusion: The soil samples of two farms were contaminated with DU but the fruit of these farms was not contaminated with DU may be due to its high molecular weight and not being water soluble. The radioactivity of 226Ra for different kinds of meat and milk for animal grazing near destroyed tanks contaminated with DU, ranges between (0.02-1.1) and (0.01-.0.2) Bq/kg respectively. These values indicated that meat and milk are uncontaminated with DU. The water samples collected from wells in the same region are below the detection limit of the system. All these results indicated that the food chain was not contaminated with DU at the time of measurements.