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 Start dateReporting criterionTitleEvent descriptionSystemLER
ENS 4711720 July 2011 05:00:00Agreement StateAgreement State Report of Lost General Licensed Devices

The following report was received from the State of Alabama via fax: On the afternoon of July 20, 2011, a representative of the Alabama Office of Radiation Control (the Agency) discovered that five general license devices containing radioactive material were unaccounted for at the closed Quantegy, Inc. facility located in Opelika, AL. The Agency representative was there to perform a routine inspection of general licensed activities and discovered that the facility was being demolished and the metal was being sold for scrap. Records indicate that the company did possess at one time fifteen general license devices. The Agency representative was able to account for ten of the fifteen devices. Five devices are unaccounted for at this time. The demolition crew, the scrap company and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources have been made aware of the missing devices. Also, the Agency is working with the manufacturer to determine if these devices were returned to the manufacturer in the past. The devices missing include four NDC Model 105 devices containing 250 millicuries (original assay) each of Cm-244. The serial numbers on record for these devices are 6075, 6025, 6102 and 6024. The fifth device missing is an NDC Model 103 device containing 150 millicuries (original assay) of Am-241. The serial number on record for this device is 2063. This is all the information that this Agency has at this time and is current as of 1530 CDT, August 2, 2011. Alabama Incident No.: 11-30

  • * * UPDATE FROM THE ALABAMA OFFICE OF RADIATION CONTROL TO HUFFMAN VIA FAX ON 7/12/12 AT 1605 EDT * * *

On August 2, 2011, the NRC Operations Center was informed of an incident when five general devices containing radioactive material were determined to be unaccounted for at the closed Quantegy, Inc. facility located in Opelika, AL. At that time, an Agency representative was able to account for ten general license devices. These ten devices were secured in a building on site. On July 12, 2012, the Agency was advised that five of the ten in storage were now missing and are considered stolen. All five devices are NDC model 105 gauges each containing Curium-244. The serial number and activity of each are noted below: NDC 105 SN 6025 Cm-244 250 mCi on 11/84 NDC 105 SN 6062 Cm-244 250 mCi on 8/87 NDC 105 SN 6064 Cm-244 250 mCi on 10/87 NDC 105 SN 6027 Cm-244 100 mCi on 5/98 NDC 105 SN 6001 Cm-244 250 mCi on 10/83 The owner of the property indicated that the devices were stolen with other property in the recent past and the local law enforcement was notified. The time and date of the theft has not yet been made available to the Agency. A copy of the police report has been requested. The five remaining devices were impounded by Agency personnel for security on the morning of July 12, 2012. R1DO (Burritt) has been notified. FSME Resources ILTAB notified via e-mail. 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 This source is not amongst those sources or devices identified by the IAEA Code of Conduct for the Safety & Security of Radioactive Sources to be of concern from a radiological standpoint. Therefore is it being categorized as a less than Category 3 source.