Licensee was performing work on pavement at State Route 22,
Indiana County,
PA when a
Moisture Density Gauge was damaged by compacting equipment. The damage to the
gauge was restricted to the casing and the licensee has confirmed that the sources are in their retracted safe positions. The damaged
gauge was moved off the pavement and a perimeter was established around it. Contact readings were recorded as 60 millirem/hr. The licensee has contacted Northeast Technical who is the service provider. The
gauge will be temporarily transferred to office storage and will be subsequently transported to the service provider for repairs. The density
gauge is a
Troxler model 3450, serial number 00397 containing 8 millicuries
Cs-137, 40 millicuries Am-241/Be (source numbers 750-6096 and 47-28081 respectively).
- * * UPDATE ON 6/21/06 AT 1100 EDT FROM CALVIN OVERDORFF TO GERRY WAIG * * *
The licensee called to correct the radiation contact reading reported above. The contact reading originally reported as 60 millirem/hr should read 6 millirem/hr to 11 millirem/hr. Notified R1DO (M. Sykes) and NMSS (G. Morell).
THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A "LESS THAN CAT 3" LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL
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.