The following information was obtained from the State of
California via email:
At 0530 PDT on 8/6/2011, a Model 4640 Troxler material density gauge belonging to Pavement Engineering of Redding, CA was lost at a construction site between McAllen Road and Olivehurst on Highway 70 south of Yuba City, CA. The operator set the gauge down by the side of the road and returned to find it missing. It was reported missing at 1105 PDT on 8/6/2011 to the California Emergency Management Agency who contacted the California Department of Public Health, Radiological Health Branch (RHB) at 1126 PDT. Sutter County Sheriff's office has responded and is investigating. Also contacted was Sutter County Fire Dept. A health physicist has been deployed from RHB to assist in the search with a variety of radiation survey instruments in case the gauge was misplaced by the side of the road.
The gauge contains 9 mCi of Cs-137.
- * * UPDATE ON 08/06/2011 AT 1936 PDT FROM JOHN FASSELL (VIA EMAIL) TO ERIC SIMPSON * * *
A survey by RHB staff over 0.6 miles of highway margin assisted by licensee personnel failed to recover the gauge. A reward will be posted by the licensee.
Notified R4DO (Hagar) and FSME EO (McKenney) via 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. For additional information go to
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1227_web.pdf