Re: Radioactive package seized

[William V Lipton <liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM>]

Let's do the math.  The package was reading 1000*(0.05mR/hr) = 50 mR/hr.



The limit for excepted packages is 0.5 mR/hr.



I don't think that's the issue, however.  This seems to be undeclared

hazardous material, i.e. sent in someone's luggage without the required

markinig or shipping papers.



The opinions expressed are strictly mine.

It's not about dose, it's about trust.



Curies forever.

Bill Lipton







BLHamrick@AOL.COM wrote:



>  I picked this up from one of Sandy's news distributions (I hope Sandy

> doesn't mind the re-post here).  Maybe someone needs to tell the

> Ukraine government that the excepted package limit for external

> radiation at the surface is ten times the level of this package

> they're concerned about, and that there are probably thousands

> criss-crossing around the world everyday. Radioactive Parcel Bound for

> U.S. Seized in Ukraine

>

> KIEV (Reuters) - A radioactive package addressed to the United States

> has been seized at Ukraine's main airport in the capital Kiev,

> Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

>

> The regional emergencies ministry said the package, discovered

> Tuesday, was emitting radiation at a rate thousands of times higher

> than the norm in Kiev of 0.05 milliroentgens an hour.

>

> "This material is being investigated," said Mykola Karabet, duty

> officer for the emergencies ministry in the Borispyl region of Kiev.

> "We do not know what it is.

>

> "It was a parcel in some luggage to be sent by air transport... There

> is no threat to human health or life."

>

> The United States has been on alert for suspect packages since

> Washington was all but shut down by letters containing anthrax powder

> in 2001.

>

> In Ukraine, metal scrap and other objects from the Chernobyl region

> are often stopped at the borders of the former Soviet state for

> higher than normal radiation levels.

>

> Large swathes of the country were left with high levels of

> radioactivity after Chernobyl's reactor number four exploded in 1986,

> in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.

>

> Health officials have blamed that accident for thousands of deaths

> from radiation-linked illnesses and an increase in thyroid cancer.