NY times article relevant to discussion on hand held Gamma spec

[JGinniver@AOL.COM]

With the current discussion on hand held gamma spectrometry I thought the following article published in the NY Times on the 7/23 might be of interest.  One thing I did find interesting was that having identify the source of radiation as I-131, the sanitation department felt the need to quarantine it for a month.


Regards, Julian Ginniver

> Finding the Scary in the Merely Messy
>
> It was the third time this month: radiation was detected on
>
> a New York City garbage truck. 
>
>
> The driver was told to leave it on a lonely patch of
>
> asphalt at the Greenpoint Transfer Station in Brooklyn. A
>
> call went out to the Sanitation Department's Environmental
>
> Police Unit, and Detectives Carlos Rodriguez and Brian
>
> Morgan had the job of finding out if the radiation was the
>
> result of something mundane, or something sinister. 
>
>
> At one time, the worst things the specially trained
>
> environmental police were called to deal with were
>
> corrosive acids, toxic asbestos, contaminated needles and
>
> medical waste. 
>
>
> But in the age of radiation threats from dirty bombs, the
>
> 10 men on the team have begun to feel that they are on the
>
> front lines in the defense of New York. If someone had
>
> radiological terrorism in mind and any of the material he
>
> used ended up in the waste system (something experts say
>
> would be likely if the criminal were not extremely careful)
>
> the environmental police would be the first to see it. 
>
>
> Last Wednesday afternoon, shortly after receiving the call,
>
> the detectives, dressed in protective gear, went to work
>
> sweeping the vehicle. First, Detective Morgan ran a
>
> radiation detector slowly up and down the side of the
>
> truck. The detector made a slow clicking noise. Then, as he
>
> came around the back, the clicking picked up pace - he was
>
> getting warmer. As he made his way to the opposite side of
>
> the truck, the needle jumped and the staccato clicking went
>
> berserk. 
>
>
> He had found the hot spot. 
>
>
> Detective Rodriguez moved in with a more sophisticated
>
> gamma radiation detector, the one that would tell them
>
> exactly what it was they had on their hands. 
>
>
> The reading came back: iodine-131, used in nuclear medicine
>
> like chemotherapy. 
>
> >SNIP That was a relief. It was almost certain that it came from
>
> a benign source.<SNIP
>
> Iodine-131's short half-life (the time it takes for half
>
> the isotope to decay) is about eight days, making it
>
> relatively easy to discard. This truck would be parked at a
>
> holding station in Brooklyn where it would sit for about a
>
> month, enough time for the iodine isotope to decay to the
>
> point of harmlessness. 
>
>
> "Fortunately, the majority of the radiation we get is
>
> iodine-131," said Ed Brescia, the industrial hygienist in
>
> charge of health and safety issues for the squad. 
>
>
> Still, every call could be a clue pointing to an evil plot.
>
> Each case has to be treated accordingly. 
>
>
> "Every agency has their role to play," said Mr. Brescia.
>
> "And I see this as being ours." 
>
>
> While United States Customs agents are just beginning to
>
> use radiation equipment at airports and the New York City
>
> police are now monitoring the bridges and tunnels for
>
> traces of radiation, the environmental police have been
>
> checking for radiation for three years. (The city started
>
> testing for radiation when it began shipping its garbage
>
> out of state. Commercial dumps have tested for radioactive
>
> material for years.) 
>
>
> The radiation monitors that check trucks at transfer
>
> stations are not sophisticated enough to determine what
>
> types of radioactive material set off the alarms. That is
>
> where the environmental police come in. 
>
>
> Calls for radiation contamination are infrequent, a few
>
> times a month at most. <SNIP



SNIP>
> These days, radiation may be the most frightening thing out
>
> there. Last September, after the attack on the World Trade
>
> Center, the environmental police got a call that radiation
>
> had been detected in a Sanitation Department truck.
>
> Expecting iodine-131, everyone was shocked when the
>
> follow-up reading showed radium-226. 
>
>
> The investigation led them to a school on the Upper West
>
> Side where teachers had recently cleaned out an attic. It
>
> turned out they had thrown away a star map from the 1940's.
>
> It was common in those days to use radium-226 to make the
>
> stars glow.<SNIP