The following information was provided by the
Florida Bureau of Radiation Control (
BRC) via email and phone:
On September 18, 2024, at 1345 EDT, BRC received call from the licensee's radiation safety officer (RSO), that an employee noticed their soil moisture density gauge [containing 10 mCi of Cs-137 and 50 mCi of Am-241:Be] was missing from the back of their pick-up truck at 1215 while traveling between job sites. The employee left a job site at the intersection of Triton and Roma in Port Saint Lucie and noticed the gauge missing at the intersection of Kanner Hwy and I-95. The employee called their supervisor at 1230, who in turn called the RSO at 1330. The employee admitted that the gauge case was not chained to truck, but that the gauge was secure in the case which had two locks on it. The employee retraced their route several times, but could not locate the gauge.
BRC will assign an inspector to respond.
Device Information:
Device type: soil moisture density gauge
Manufacturer: CPN
Model Number: MC-DR
Serial number: MD40107276
Florida incident number: FL24-092
- * * UPDATE ON 9/25/2024 AT 1511 EDT FROM MARK SEIDENSTICKER TO TENISHA MEADOWS * * *
On September 25, 2024, at 1440 EDT, BRC was notified that the gauge had been returned. A worker on the job site returned the gauge in its case on September 25, 2024. The gauge was intact. A latch on the case was broken off, but the other latch was intact with a lock on it.
Notified R1DO (Dimitriadis), NMSS (email), and ILTAB (email)
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