ASSESSMENT OF THE LEVEL OF RADIONUCLIDE IN DRINKING WATER IN SELECTED SCHOOLS IN THE NORTHERN PART OF DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Portable drinking water is crucial in human health discussions. It is no secret that radionuclides are major pollutants of this resource. This study assessed gammaray emitting radionuclides in drinking water in selected secondary schools in Eight Local Governments in the northern part of Delta State, Nigeria. Gamma spectrometry having a highly efficient NaI (TI) detector was used for the identification and quantification of these radionuclides. The obtained activity concentrations were then used to calculate the annual effective doses associated with the intake of water for the students between the ages of 12 and 17 years. The
result show that238U, 232Th and 40K are the major radionuclides found in the water samples. The activity concentration ranges from 5.29 ± 0.11 to 10.24 ± 2.05 ????????????−1, 1.58 ± 0.03 to 9.06 ± 2.12????????????−1 and145.61±12.60 to 345.78±7.99????????????−1, the calculated values for the annual effective doses are 6.836, 0.510 and 0.980 ????????????????−1 for 238U, 232Th and 40K respectively. The measured activity values are relatively high and exceed the recommended respective reference activity limits for drinking water of 1.0, 0.1 and 10 ????????????
−1 by World Health Organisation (WHO). The calculated associated dose values also exceed the 0.1 and 1.0 ????????????????−1 limits of the WHO and the ICRP. Thus drinking water in the studied schools appears to be radiologically unfit. It is suggested that relevant bodies such as Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) should carry out necessary quality control checks