NRC Warns of Nearly 1,500 Pieces Missing of Radioactive Materials
May 4, 2002; Page A13
By Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer
U.S. businesses and medical facilities have lost track of nearly 1,500 pieces equipment with radioactive parts since 1996, according to a new federal accounting of radiological material that terrorism experts warn could be used in a "dirty bomb" attack against a U.S. city.
The loss of radiological material, ranging from medical diagnostic equipment to industrial X-ray machines, has been viewed with increased concern since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and has prompted several new measures to prevent theft, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a document released yesterday by a House member from Massachusetts.
The vast majority of the missing items contain tiny amounts of radioactive material and pose little threat, NRC officials said. But there have been several instances in recent years of lost or stolen hospital equipment that contains potentially lethal amounts of radioactive cobalt or cesium.
Such material could be packed around a conventional explosive -- a combination known as a "dirty bomb" -- to scatter radiation over large areas.
"The commission is concerned about this potential terrorist threat and has advised its licensees to enhance security," the NRC said in the report, which was requested by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
The NRC regulates the commercial use of radioactive material. It acknowledged receiving reports of 1,495 lost or stolen radioactive "sources" between October 1996 and September 2001; about 660 of the missing items -- 44 percent -- were recovered, but the rest remain missing, the agency said.
Lost and missing radioactive material has been a chronic, if under-recognized, concern for both the NRC and the Department of Energy for more than a decade. A DOE inventory begun in 1995 determined that "tens of thousands" of the agency's radioactive sources could not be fully accounted for, said Robert Alvarez, a DOE senior adviser during the Clinton administration.
"If one of these things can end up in a scrap yard, it can end up in the hands of a terrorist," Alvarez said.
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