I’ve got Pu results for your sample. I’m still finishing up the Am-241 but it really doesn’t matter much, as the original Am-241 was clearly a statistical zero. As you can see, they are all conclusively zero. To prepare these samples, I looked at the bottle as having essentially three phases – water, fine sediment (where the Pu would most likely be found), and coarse sediment (I’m assuming this is what your consultant referred to as “gravel”). I first shook the bottle vigorously and took about 50 mL of water and the fine sediment before it could settle. I centrifuged this and subdivided it into two samples, the water and the fine sediment. Then I took a sample of the coarse sediment that had already settled. The three sub-samples and a method blank were totally dissolved by a potassium fluoride fusion.

I picked up the July issue of Rock and Ice last weekend and saw your piece on the “proof” of Pu in the first sample. I have to tell you, I was disappointed that you didn’t present any alternative view. I understand that piece may have been written before we began communicating, but I plan to send in a letter to the editor explaining the correct interpretation of the results.

I’m curious why the NOP passed over consultants with decades of Pu chemistry experience and referred you to your consultant. I am also curious about the apparent lack of understanding regarding the extent of global contamination with all sorts of radioactive elements, including Pu and Am, from atmospheric weapons testing. Truly, there is no place in the mid-lattitudes that can be claimed as being “out of reach” of fallout contamination, however small it may be.

I have to question the information you’re getting from your consultant. The use of isotope ratios to determine contamination sources is one of the most common techniques in chemistry. His statement that he couldn’t, “speak to the 238 vs. 239 issue” demonstrates either a lack of understanding of basic Pu chemistry or a willingness to ignore contradictory evidence. This point is the crux of the entire analysis. As I’ve said many times, the SNAP contained mostly 238, therefore no 238 means no SNAP. End of story.

Additionally, he clearly does not understand the process of interpreting radiochemical results and their associated uncertainties. Neither he nor his company actually ran the sample analysis, it was sent to a real radiochemistry lab. It is a common request that laboratories re-count samples when the results come in between 2 and 3 standard deviations positive to avoid the situation we are in now where a positive detection can be inferred based simply on statistics of a single count. Why wasn’t this requested? I am quite certain that if you were to call this lab and ask for their interpretation of the data, it would be quite different from your consultant’s and very similar to mine. Furthermore, his statement that the Pu was found in the “gravel” makes no sense to me after seeing the actual sample. The lab reported only one result. It makes no sense that the lab would have separated the coarse sediment and washed it repeatedly to remove any fine sediment, and then have run that sample.

Are you willing to declare with final certainty that the Ganges River is contaminated with Pu from the CIA SNAP based on the misinterpreted results of a single measurement from a single sample from a single location, without even acknowledging an alternate interpretation? The 238 vs. 239 results overwhelmingly prove that, regardless of the disagreement about the 239 “detection”, any Pu in the sample could not have come from the SNAP. Even without the results of my analysis, there is no real evidence of Pu contamination. My data simply confirms that.