Naval Undersea Warfare Command (NUSW) located in Keyport,
Washington has identified fifty seven (57) ionizing air guns that are unaccounted for. The devices were manufactured by NRD,
LLC of
New York, NY and contained 10 milliCuries of
Po-210. NUSW is missing five (5) Model P-2021 devices and fifty-two (52) P-2051 devices. These are general license devices.
The unaccounted devices were found during a command inspection after questions arose surrounding the number of devices in the command. The inspection revealed the majority of the devices seem to have gone unaccounted for during the 1994 - 1995 timeframe.
Contamination surveys have confirmed there are no contamination issues or workforce exposure issues associated with this event.
A command investigation is ongoing.
The following serial numbers were identified as unaccounted for: For Model P-2021: A2GQ217, A2GQ241, A2BY498, A2AW678, and A2AQ471. For Model P-2051: 95609, 83722, 79841, 79225, 76422, 76423, 76424, 76425, 76427, 76428, 76429, 76430, 76431, 76432, 76433, 72859, 72860, 72861, 70708, 70709, 70710, 70711, 70712, 70713, 70714, 67850, 67851, 67853, 67854, 67855, 67856, 67857, 67860, 67861, 67862, 67863, 67881, 67882, 67883, 67884, 67888, 56477, 56303, 55244, 46840, 46844, 46914, 46952, 46954, 46963, 38242, AND 38348.
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