---

St. George and other nearby residents interested in learning more about radiation can attend a free workshop presented by Desert Research Institute this weekend, Saturday, May 21, 2005.

Held at Dixie High School in St. George, the workshop will feature a morning session from 10 a.m. to noon and an afternoon session from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Both sessions are open to the public and include refreshments.

In the morning, researchers will discuss the "ABC's of Radiation" and the monitoring that is done on the Nevada Test Site.  The afternoon session will focus on DRI's Community Environmental Monitoring Program, called CEMP, and how to use its Web site to get real-time data on radiation levels and more.  The CEMP is one of the major "off-site" monitoring programs for the Nevada Test Site.

Dixie High School is at 350 East, 700 South in St. George.

The first CEMP stations went up in 1981, helping give residents in areas surrounding the test site an active role in understanding and protecting their own health and well-being.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, CEMP enlists local residents at 26 sites -- including St. George, Cedar City, Milford and Delta in Utah -- to supervise and maintain an instrument package that provides visible, real-time status reports on radiation levels and weather conditions.

Similar to a citizen-based program in Pennsylvania that resulted after the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor incident in 1979, CEMP was designed to help build public confidence through community involvement.

Each CEMP station consists of a sampler that collects airborne particulates, including radioactive particles, by pulling air through a paper filter. Sophisticated scientific instruments continuously measure gamma radiation at the location.

Meteorological instruments record air temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, barometric pressure and precipitation. All data is available online in real time.

For more workshop information, contact DRI's Ted Hartwell at 702-862-5419 or ted.hartwell@dri.edu. For information about CEMP, go to http://cemp.dri.edu/.

About DRI
A nonprofit, statewide division of the University and Community College System of Nevada, DRI pursues a full-time program of basic and applied environmental research on a local, national and international scale. More than 500 full- and part-time scientists, technicians and support staff conduct more than 300 research projects at DRI annually.  DRI generates $45 million in total revenue consisting predominately of competitively won research contracts and grants.

The State of Nevada provides critical funding in support of DRI's administration, operations and maintenance, through the University and Community College System of Nevada budget. While DRI's portion of the UCCSN budget is less than 1 percent, the institute leverages these funds to enhance its competitiveness.