The following information was provided by the State of
New Jersey via email:
At approximately 1145 [EDT] on Thursday, September 3, 2015, the licensee's Administrator/Radiation Safety Officer was contacted [by the State of New Jersey] to discuss several issues related to the re-location of their office. One of the issues raised was the location of several dose calibrator vial sources and gamma-camera flood sources that were last known to be in the possession of the licensee. The licensee had not provided confirmation that the sources had been moved during their office re-location or had been disposed of properly. The licensee stated that their consulting physicist was taking care of the sources. When informed that the consultant had been contacted and did not know the location of the sources, the licensee stated then they did not know where they were either. As such, the sources are considered lost.
Of the sources unaccounted for, only the above listed Cs-137 vial source was of sufficient activity to warrant a report. The vial source in question is a North American Scientific, Inc., model MED 3550, serial # 28809, 205.6 microCi as calibrated on 10/1/02.
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