On 1/31/07 the licensee shipped a pig which was assumed to contain a training source (
CS-137 with a strength of 7 milliCuries) from the Port of Miami location to the Los Angeles, CA location. When the shipment arrived in Los Angeles no source could be found in the pig. The source was verified by both survey and visual inspection to not be present. The officers in Los Angeles notified the
RSO and the Port of Miami of the missing source. A search for the source was conducted in Port of Miami and Los Angeles, the source was not located. No pre-shipment survey was performed in Miami; therefore the source could not be verified, by radiation levels on the pig, to have been present when shipped.
During the investigation, several officers involved in the training and that routinely uses the licensee's sources at the Port of Miami, stated that they believe there was never a source in the storage pig. The licensee has contacted the source vendor, International Isotopes, to verify that a source was actually shipped in the pig to Miami. When the licensee attempted to locate the pre-shipment survey, it could not be found.
All other sources in the licensees possession have been accounted for.
The licensee continues to attempt to locate the source and will update the NRC as new information becomes available.
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.
This source is not amongst those sources or devices identified by the
IAEA Code of Conduct for the Safety & Security of Radioactive Sources to be of concern from a radiological standpoint. Therefore is it being categorized as a less than Category 3 source