[ RadSafe ] radium source questions

[Don Jordan]

The web site that you refer to was probably the Sealed Source and Device
registration site operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratories for the NRC.
Unfortunately, the NRC took this site off-line last year because of
"security concerns".  It is currently available only with a password to
trusted persons, which evidently categorically excludes NRC's licensees.

The former general availability of this site to persons, like us, who must
work with radioactive devices, was a great help in dealing with them safely
and competently, especially with legacy devices where the manufacturer is
defunct.  Apparently the actual safety of the persons working with these
devices is secondary to the virtual, and in my opinion - illusory, public
safety achieved by restricting this information.  I concur that information
about some high activity devices should probably be restricted, but no
terrorist would benefit much from the information contained in the SSD for
ordinary industrial devices; they're going to dismantle it with plastic
explosives, not hand tools.

That said, there is probably no SSD for your radium devices since the NRC
doesn't regulate that isotope and at the time the devices mentioned were
made, most of the states probably didn't either.

Don Jordan
RAM Services Inc.

DonJordan at ramservicesinc.com