At 0830 on November 28, 2005, RHB-Brea received a call from the licensee that one of their
gauges (
CPN, MC1-DRP, #MD20306488 containing 10 mCi
Cs-137 and 50 mCi Am-241:Be) was
stolen out of their construction trailer that was located at a temporary job site (KB Homes - "The Cove" construction site, located at the corner of Warren Road and Cottonwood in San Jacinto, CA). Three of the four construction trailers at this job site had been broken into over the same time period - the security metal plates (covering the locks to the doors) had all been pried open and the locks to the doors were cut off and were removed from the site. The theft occurred sometime between 1130 on November 23, 2005 (when the
gauge user secured the
gauge inside the construction trailer) and 0722 on November 28, 2005 (when the
gauge user returned to the job site and discovered the theft). The last leak test for this
gauge was performed on January 4, 2005 and was negative for removable contamination. The licensee contacted the San Jacinto Police Department to report the theft. They will also post a $1000 reward for the
gauge in the local paper.
CA NMED #: XCA-824
- * * UPDATE FROM D. KRAJEWSKI TO W. GOTT AT 1925 ON 03/02/06 * * *
The gauge was located about a week ago and returned to the owner Leighton and Associates. The gauge was not damaged. A leak test was performed and the results are pending. Local law enforcement are still investigating.
Notified R4DO (Whitten), NMSS EO (Flanders), emailed to ILTAB and Mexico.
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. Some of these sources, such as
moisture density gauges or thickness
gauges that are 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.