Radioactive Material Vulnerable In U.S.

Security lapses involving radioactive materials have led to scores of enforcement actions against universities, construction companies, hospitals and even the U.S. Army in recent years, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.

In at least 16 cases violators were fined thousands of dollars.

But NRC officials said that the breaches either did not lead to a loss of radioactive material, or involved amounts so small they could not have been useful to terrorists seeking to craft a "dirty bomb."

NRC officials acknowledge they cannot say for certain that no radioactive material has been diverted. Tracking of most of these industrial-use materials is left largely to private industry. With 2 million radioactive sources in commerce, there is no certainty all of it can be accounted for, the officials say.

"The reality is it's a very large volume of material that's out in the community and I can't give you any assurance that (some) material might not have been diverted by now," said Richard Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in an interview Wednesday.

Meserve said he was reasonably certain that no large radiation sources — such as the foot-long "pencils" of cobalt-60 used to irradiate food, or larger amounts of cesium-137 used in medicine - have been stolen. None has been reported missing, although the NRC gets on average 300 reports of small amounts of radioactive materials — usually material in gauges or other equipment — missing each year. About half eventually is recovered.

As for the larger sources, the materials are highly radioactive and must be heavily shielded. "It is a very difficult (material) for a terrorist to handle without receiving a lethal dose himself," said Meserve. Nevertheless, he said, transporters and users of these materials have been told to boost security.

NRC enforcement records show more than 54 cases requiring "elevated enforcement actions" over the last five years because of security violations involving industrial nuclear materials. Violators facing fines from $2,500 to $15,000 included government agencies, universities, hospitals, military facilities and construction and engineering companies.

Three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a New Jersey dentistry school was fined $3,000 for "failure to ... maintain constant surveillance" on its nuclear material. Three months later the University of Wisconsin-Madison was fined $3,000 for not securing radioactive material.

The Army was fined $8,000 for not properly securing nuclear materials at its Rock Island Arsenal. In 1997, an employee at the Defense Logistics Agency in Pennsylvania was found to have stolen an item containing radioactive material; in 1999, the Interior Department was cited by the NRC for security lapses. Neither of those cases involved fines.

Construction and engineering firms in a number of states were cited for not keeping track of moisture gauges that contain small amounts of cesium-137. Last November alone, three companies were fined $3,000 each for not properly securing portable moisture gauges.

John Hickey, of the NRC office dealing with industrial nuclear materials, said the enforcement actions — as well as virtually all the missing material reports — involved extremely small amounts of material.

For example, according to the NRC, between 1996 and 2001 a total of 11.3 curies of cesium-137 was reported missing. Most — perhaps all — of that material reflects thefts of gauges used in construction and medicine, each of which would contain a small fraction of a curie of cesium.

While the NRC must license all users of these materials, it does not keep track of the radioactive material, relying largely on self-regulation. Hickey said users are required to inventory the material every six months and report if anything is missing.

MDS Nordion, a supplier of medical isotopes that ships radioactive material to 80 countries, says it keeps constant check on where its material is located across the globe. Referring to its shipments of cobalt-60, company spokeswoman Paula Burchat said, "We know where every `pencil' is. We recycle the cobalt and it comes back to us.

"We have very tight security."

By H. Josef Hebert