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During the summer of 1982, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a comprehensive multimedia environmental monitoring program in the vicinity of two secondary lead smelters and at one reference site in Dallas, Texas. This monitoring program included a major soils investigation with the collection and analysis of over 2700 soil samples. In addition, approximately 1000 blood and 840 house dust samples were collected and analyzed for their lead content.Utilizing geostatistics and the data obtained from a portion of the soil samples, isopleths of constant soil lead concentrations within each of the three monitoring sites were identified. Presented are the soil monitoring strategy and the geostatistical techniques selected for identifying the distributions of soil lead patterns at each of the three monitoring sites. In addition, the soil sampling and analytical methods used, the sample handling and preparation procedures, and the geostatistical results obtained are identified.

This paper presents a general review of public safety standards as adapted by the nuclear weapons testing program in the United States, and the impact of these changing standards on the nuclear testing program itself. The review notes the importance of improvements in diagnostic instrumentation and methodologies from a relatively simple degree of sophistication to their current high level. Use of the improved methodologies uncovered a serious oversight affecting human exposure, namely, that of not recognizing the relative importance of all potential transport/dosimetric pathways for risk assessment. The testing program, from its inception in the Pacific in 1946 to the present time in Nevada, is viewed from the perspective of providing improved radiation protection to the general public.