On 2 May 1974, 479,000 Ci of tritium gas escaped from a Savannah River Plant exhaust stack. The tritium first reached the ground in a pine forested area and was partially assimilated into the ecosystem. Samples of vegetation collected and measured for a period of 70 days showed an increase in the levels of tritiated water. Cycling of the tritium retained in the forest ecosystem resulted in a hi...

Tritium released into the environment may be incorporated into organic matter. Organically bound tritium in that case will show retention times in organisms that are considerably longer than those of tritiated water which has significant consequences on dose estimates. This article reviews the most important processes of organically bound tritium production and transport through food networks. ...

With the use of a newly introduced technique, the "influx profile analysis," we studied the diffusion of tritiated water in and out of frog ovarian eggs at 25 degrees C. The results show that the rate-limiting step in the exchange of labeled water is not permeation through the cell membrane but diffusion in the bulk of the intracellular water.