The following was received via email:
Specific Location Information Where Incident Occurred:
Pace Analytical Services, Beaver-WV Environmental Laboratory
Incident, Amount:
In [Pace's] inventory, [Pace] had six spare Agilent ECDs [Electron Capture Devices]. [Pace] believes they were accidentally placed in the trash for disposal and were subsequently placed in the local landfill. The ECDs have a sealed source with approximately 15 milliCuries of Nickel 63 each. These were the ECDs only and not the entire instrument, Gas Chromatograph (GC).
ECDs / Models:
F6470 / 19233
F6526 / 19233
L2643 / 19233
L7189 / 19233
F4602 / 19233
F6242 / 19233
Date of Lost/Misplaced ECDs, Last Time Seen:
Identified as missing October 1, 2018.
Confirmed to be missing October 3, 2018
Last seen September 26, 2018.
Believed to be placed in the laboratory trash September 26th-29th, 2018.
Root Cause:
During a clean-up/lean event employees were going through the lab and reorganizing/disposing of unneeded materials. The six ECDs were used as reserves for GC instrumentation and placed in a bag in efforts to not dispose of them. At some point later in the week, it is believed that either an employee or cleaning person mistook the bag as garbage and threw them away.
Measures to Recover:
Upon discovering the lost ECDs, Pace contacted the trash hauler - Raleigh County Solid Waste Authority. They stated that, due to the length of time that has passed since disposal, the likelihood of recovery is essentially zero. Due to the process of filling hollow-like areas, anything disposed has approximately 20 feet of additional material over it, and they have no way of knowing where the truck would have dumped the materials.
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