The following was received from the State of
Texas via email:
On November 14, 2014, the agency [Texas Department of State Health Services] was notified by the licensee, Weatherford International, that a 10 microCurie Americium-241 source [Serial # A1-531] was lost from its R&D facility in Houston, TX. The source was identified as missing during an inventory on 11/10/2014. After searching the company's R&D facility, the loss was reported to the [Texas] Department of State Health Services. The licensee's RSO suggested the source may have been swept out with trash. The source was last verified to be in its storage location December of last year [2013]. The company keeps a log of source usage and searched each use location in the building. The source is only used in the same building where it is stored.
Texas incident # I-9252
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