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RE: ABCNEWS.com: Hundreds of Radioactive Devices Missing
The boy did not steal the signs. He was walking past a demolition site near his home and found 3 tritium exit signs in the debris. He took them home, reportedly to illuminate posters on the walls of his basement level bedroom. After partially disassembling the signs and apparently breaking one or more of the tubes, he contacted local officials because he was concerned about the radiation symbols he found on the signs. Analysis of his urine showed a TEDE of about 80 mrem. It probably would not have been nearly this high if he hadn't been in a basement level room (relatively low ventilation) and hadn't been snacking while working on the signs.
About $100,000 in clean up, disposal and temporary relocation costs for the family were paid by the state's Spill Fund. Salary costs of the people from the various local, state and national agencies that worked on the incident are not included in this figure. I was told by a reporter that the $200,000 figure came "from the NRC". The salary figure would have been significant but would not have reached an additional $100,000. Agencies involved in responding to the incident included the NRC, USEPA, Brookhave NL, Oak Ridge NL, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, local school officials, local police, local fire department, local health department, state health department and state environmental protection.
The root cause of the incident was that the company that owned the signs did not maintain adequate control over them and did not dispose of them properly.
Gerald Nicholls
NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection
609-633-7964
>>> <Jack_Earley@RL.GOV> 04/17/02 10:13AM >>>
I don't remember the details of the boy who stole the construction sign. Was
he ever prosecuted for the theft, and who paid for the $200,000 cleanup?
Ironic that they would then ask how hard is it for a criminal to obtain a
radioactive device, and cite for their example a machine that sat in a pawn
shop for a year where it could have been "purchased" by anybody. I had the
impression that journalists as a group were liberal anti-nukes (is that
redundant?). Maybe I was wrong and there's just a good number of them that
are stupid.
Jack Earley
Radiological Engineer
-----Original Message-----
From: Elaine Marshall [mailto:emarshall@fnal.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 6:28 AM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Fw: ABCNEWS.com: Hundreds of Radioactive Devices Missing
> I thought you might find this story interesting.
>
> Hundreds of Radioactive Devices Missing
> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/nuclear_material020410.html
>
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