An employee of Geomechanics notified his company that a Humboldt Scientific
gauge was
stolen from his truck. The
moisture density gauge is a Humboldt Scientific (Model 5001, S/N 4731) with 40 millicuries of Am-241/Be and 10 millicuries of
Cs-137. The source serial numbers are NJ04997 and 5850CM respectively. The employee was parked overnight in a Holiday Inn Express parking lot in Charleston
West Virginia when the theft occurred. The
gauge was locked in a container, which was chained to the bed of the truck. The licensee notified the
LLEA and they are investigating the incident. The licensee is not expecting any media attention, and is not offering a reward.
Less than the quantity of an IAEA Category 3 source.
Sources that are 'Less than IAEA Category 3 sources,' are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury.
For some of these sources, such as moisture density gauges or thickness gauges that are IAEA Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly - although it is unlikely - temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks.
- UPDATE 09/23/05 at 1530 EDT from Clay Carney and Walter Lorence to MacKinnon ****
Operations Officer for the State of
West Virginia Homeland Security tied the NRC Headquarters Operation Officer with Geomechanics Radiation Safety Officer. The Emergency Director for Boone County,
West Virginia, has found the
stolen Humboldt
Moisture Density gauge intact and in its case. A State of
West Virginia police officer is on scene guarding the missing
gauge. Geomechanics will be sending a consultant from Applied Health Physics out of Pittsburgh,
PA to check the
gauge out and bring it back to Geomechanics. Notified NRC R1DO(P. Henderson) &
NMSS EO (
Scott Moore) and emailed to TAS (L. English).