Abstract
Soil contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) may be disposed of by spreading over clean soil that has certain favorable characteristics. This disposal option dilutes the contaminated soil by mixing it with clean soil that has the property of retarding significantly migration of leached radionuclides from the contaminated soil. This is intended to protect groundwater in the vicinity, if any, from getting contaminated by the leached radionuclides (Cothern and Rebers, 1990). The present study concerns itself with the decontamination of gravel that had been contaminated with Ra-226 from natural origins (Brink et al., 1978). It was important to find out the leachability of Ra-226 and its immediate daughter Rn-222. Aqueous solutions of different composition, including water, dilute acids, and various concentrations of CaCl sub(2) and BaCl sub(2) were used to leach the contaminated gravel.