A 2 milliCurie sealed source of Iron-55, used for calibration, was misplaced and believed to be lost. The source (Mfg # C1-375) was stored in a pig in a locked cabinet in a secure lab. Inventory is taken daily, and the last time it was seen was 2/17/09. Licensee believes that a lab technician was working with the source and it accidently rolled off the desk into a trash container. Licensee has searched every possible area where it may have gone. The sealed source was in a plastic tube, and therefore the exposure to personnel is just above background.
- * * UPDATE AT 1627 ON 3/12/2009 FROM BOB WESTERDALE TO MARK ABRAMOVITZ * * *
The strength of the Fe-55 source was calculated to be 660 microCuries on 3/10/2009.
Notified the R1DO (Dimitriatis), FSME (Mauer) and ILTAB (Whitney via e-mail).
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