The following information was provided by the
Kansas Department of Health & Environment (KDHE) via email:
On 9/16/2022 (morning), a technician with Kansas City Testing and Engineering, LLC, discovered his work truck had been broken into overnight near his home. The truck had been parked across the street from the technician's apartment. The rear passenger window was completely shattered and the Troxler moisture density gauge was missing along with a few hundred dollars of personal property and an estimated one thousand dollars of work equipment. The technician immediately called the RSO [Radiation Safety Officer] of Kansas City Testing and Engineering. Then, the technician filed a police report with local law enforcement. The RSO reported that he had called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to report the incident, but that the NRC had instructed him to report it to KDHE [beforehand]. The RSO also stated he reported the incident to Troxler. Stolen equipment was a Troxler 3440P (Serial Number 77305). According to the license, the sources are an 8 mCi Cs-137 and a 40 mCi Am-241/Be.
At 1030 CDT on 9/16/2022, the inspector met in person with the technician at a job site. The inspector was informed that the gauge had been locked in the backseat of the truck cab and secured with a chain and a padlock through a metal anchor bracket. The metal anchor bracket had been cut. The gauge, chain, and padlock were all removed from the truck.
This incident occurred in Missouri and the licensee also holds an NRC radioactive materials license."
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