The following information was provided by Agilent Technologies (the licensee) via phone:
A single electron capture device (ECD) containing 15 mCi of Ni-63 was reported to be lost. The ECD was one of ten in a package being transferred by a customer on June 5, 2024. The licensee believes that the ECD was erroneously discarded by a licensee operator. The licensee attempted to recover the ECD without success.
The licensee's root cause analysis determined the event occurred due to the employee not following the established procedure. In addition, employee training was inadequate due to failure to update the training program. Corrective action to update the training program has been undertaken by the licensee.
The following additional information was obtained from the licensee in accordance with Headquarters Operations Officers Report Guidance:
The licensee believes that the ECD was discarded in the facility's normal waste stream.
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