[ RadSafe ] Re: Panel wants tighter radiation security

[Doug Aitken]

At 11:04 AM 10/18/2007, Dan McCarn wrote:
>Hello Group:
>
>Being a geologist, I thought I might add my two cents into this crazy
>discussion:  Apparently, the defense folks skipped the issue about the many,
>many neutron and gamma sources currently in use in the petroleum and mining
>industries worldwide, not to mention the innumerable "retired" sources.  Every
>country that has a potential petroleum or mineral resource has numerous
>10-15 Curie sources running around in the bush to remote locations.

As someone intimately involved in this issue for one of the major oilfield 
service companies, I can assure you that the requirements of IAEA and local 
regulators (e.g NRC, DHS, etc) have been acted on fully in all our 
installations throughout the world.
Of course, the security during transfer of these sources from our 
installations to the wellsites where they are utilized, and their security 
at these wellsites, are issues that are somewhat dependent on local 
political stability, security arrangements in conjunction with clients and 
local security forces and client implementation of security at their 
wellsite installations.

I am pretty sure that the other major service companies have taken similar 
steps.

Unfortunately, there will always be instances of people (among the many 
users of radioactive sources) slipping in their control of sources, as 
highlighted by the loss of two (soil?) gauges that "fell of the back of a 
truck" on a major highway in Houston yesterday, causing total chaos during 
rush hour yesterday.....
One was recovered while the other remains lost........

And, of course, having nukes accidently overfly the US shows that even 
those we "assume" are in control of their assets can screw up, with 
potentially greater consequence than the loss of a soil gauge......

Regards
Doug


Doug Aitken                     Cell Phone    713 562-8585
QHSE Advisor
D&M Operations Support
Schlumberger Technology Corporation