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Re: ABCNEWS.com: Hundreds of Radioactive Devices Missing
From: "Gerald Nicholls" <GNICHOLL@dep.state.nj.us>
> 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,
called stealing
> 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
wasted
> 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
maybe, if done by us cost-effective state employees, but at NRC's charges
per hour? and how many high-cost HQ hours get loaded on the hours of the
people doing the "work?" EPA different? wouldn't seem likely :-)
> 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.
good grief :-( unconscionable!
> 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.
No. Root cause is gross ignorance by regulators.
Regards, Jim
===========
> 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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