The following information was received from the
Arizona Radiation Regulatory Agency via e-mail:
At approximately 9:00 AM August 23, 2012, the Agency was informed that the licensee lost a 3 millicurie Americium-241 source and a 0.9 microcurie Radium-226 source.
The licensee was performing a clean-up at their facility between the dates of February 15, 2012 and June 11, 2012. The licensee assumes during those dates is when the sources went missing. However, the radiation safety officer for the license left on October 21, 2011 and the licensee cannot verify the location of the sources after that date.
The licensee is currently interviewing employees involved in the cleanup to attempt to determine the location of the missing sources.
The Arizona Regulatory Agency continues to investigate the event.
The states of CA, NV, CO, UT, and NM and Mexico and U.S. NRC and FBI are being notified of this event.
AZ Report Number 12-014
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
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