The NRC Operations Center received the following information from the State of
Colorado via fax:
The Radiation Management Program of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment received telephone notification on Monday 23 October 06 regarding the theft of a portable moisture density gauge.
Radioactive Materials Involved: a Troxler 3430 gauge, serial number 28201 containing 333 MBq (9 mCi) of Cesium 137 and 1.63 GBq (44 mCi) of Am-241/Be.
Event details: The theft occurred at the residence of an employee of the licensee ( DELETED) at 6:15 PM on Sunday 22 Oct 06. The Troxler gauge was reported to be in a locked case, chained and locked in the bed of a Ford Ranger. The employee witnessed the theft of the truck from his garage with the gauge secured in the bed of the truck.
The local police were called at the time of the theft but (DELETED) did not have a police contact name or phone number at the time of this report.
Notification was made by licensee RSO to the State of Colorado.
CO Incident Number 42928.
- * * UPDATE FROM STATE (PENTECOST) TO M. RIPLEY AT 1129 EST ON 11/8/06 * * *
The State provided the following information via email:
On 7 Nov 06, the stolen Ford ranger was recovered by Lakewood [CO] police without the gauge. Later that evening, the Thornton [CO] police recovered the gauge within a different stolen vehicle. The gauge and transport case have been returned undamaged and properly functioning to Acura Engineering.
Notified R4 DO (J. Clark), NMSS EO (G. Morell) and ILTAB (Email)
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.