Radioactive Tool Goes Missing In Texas

Hugh Pickens writes "Oil-field service companies lower radioactive units into wells to let workers identify places to break apart rock for a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which frees oil and natural gas. Now Bloomberg reports that Halliburton workers have discovered that a lock on the container used to transport one such device has gone missing, along with the unit, after employees drove a truck from a site near Peco to a well south of Odessa and while the loss of radioactive rods occurs from time to time, it has been years since a device with americium-241/beryllium, the material in Halliburton's device, was misplaced in Texas. NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley says the material would have to be in someone's physical possession for several hours for it to be considered harmful as teams comb the route between the two wellsites searching for the seven-inch tube, which is clearly marked with the words 'DANGER RADIOACTIVE' as well as a radiation warning symbol, "Halliburton strongly cautions members of the public that if they locate this source, they should not touch or handle it, stay a minimum of 25 feet away," and contact local law enforcement or the company's emergency hotline if they find the cylinder, says the company which is also offering a reward for information about the tube's whereabouts."

Comments

"I'll offer you $50 for it"

[grumling]

Looking forward to seeing what the experts think it's worth on next week's Pawn Stars.

Not just hydrofrac...

[Anonymous Coward]

Such tools are routinely use to estimate density in pretty much all oilfield well logging.

Re:Not just hydrofrac...

[NeverVotedBush]

Around 1990 I was working at an oilfield testing company that had the grown kid of the original company owner at the helm. The guy was a moron and didn't care how the company functioned as long as the money kept coming in for him to go play the horses at a local racetrack.

Anyway, the field guys lost a radioactive source and couldn't find it. They thought it bounced out of an unsecured lead canister along a road somewhere.

They got their hand slapped for it but somewhere in the midwest there is a hot source laying by the road. Or was. Who knows if anyone ever found it.

These kinds of things are inexcusable because anyone who happens to find one and pick it up has their life changed. Cancer and death awaits if anyone spends any length of time with one of those sources. If a company cannot follow a checklist for handling one of those sources, they should not be allowed to use them.

Thoughts

[Sparticus789]

If the finder does not contact law enforcement, then I feel this issue is best left up to natural selection. First to nominate for a Darwin award.

Re:Thoughts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If the finder does not contact law enforcement, then I feel this issue is best left up to natural selection. First to nominate for a Darwin award.

Depending on exactly how the source is encapulated, it may well not work out so neatly. If mechanically damaged, Americium-241 could come out to play and get all over the place, including friends, family, and general passers-by who hardly did anything to deserve an award...

This thing isn't exactly an unalterable inventory item that just happens to do 1d6 radiation damage every hour it remains in a character's inventory.

Re:Thoughts

[Greyfox]

Yeah! It's at least 2d20 area effect, unless you make the saving throw against radiation!

Re:Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

And what is stupid if not "simple."

Stupidity and Simplicity are orthogonal. Complex solutions can be stupid. Simplicity can be brilliant.

Re:Thoughts

[ChumpusRex2003]

It's a neutron emitter. Alpha-particles will interact with Beryllium nuclei to emit neutrons. By encapsulating a mixture of Americium 241 and Beryllium, the alpha radiation (and gamma radiation) can be contained, but the neutrons allowed out, where they can be used for chemical analysis (in this case for analysing the composition of the rocks around the well bore).

Quite apart from the fact that the source is dangerous in its own right, emitting neutrons which are an ionising radiation, they are a particular nuisance, because they can leave "radioactivity behind" by activating the nuclei of nearby materials (metals are particularly troublesome).

From time to time?

[djdanlib]

Wait. Who's saying that "the loss of radioactive rods occurs from time to time" in such a nonchalant way, like they're trying to convince the readers that it's no big deal? It's a big deal. You don't just lose stuff like that.. they're transported in large, heavy packages!

Better link

[vlm]

while the loss of radioactive rods occurs from time to time

This is a better link

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/

Its pretty interesting reading. I think I heard about it from RISKS digest maybe a decade ago. About a half dozen reports are filed every day. At least one will be interesting, or at least WTF worthy. The story about the weld radiographer getting the source stuck while he was up a ladder so he took the source out and wore it like a necklace as he went down the ladder a couple days ago is WTF worthy.

I've worked with these before I think?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the description of purpose is actually accurate. Pretty sure they're talking about a Radioactive Densometer used to measure fluid density, which is used at the surface and attached to pipes pumping fluid, and isn't lowered into a well or whatever. It's basically a section of pipe with a very small radioactive source on one side, and a detector across from it. The measured decay rate tells you the fluid density accurately (the denser the fluid, the more radiation is blocked). They're actually fairly harmless in terms of radiation levels, although it's still important to recover lost ones.

Nuclear density gauges

[Anonymous Coward]

The nuclear density gauges are relatively common in civil engineering.Yeah, they go missing from time to time.

How they usually go missing--some joker steals a worker's truck on a job site. The idiot doesn't realize he has taken a van with a restricted device in the back. Then a world of hurt descends on the person when they are finally caught.

The person who was in charge of the gauge finds they are in trouble for leaving the vehicle unsecured.

Oh boy!

[bmo]

This reminds me of the Goiania accident, a horrifying incident where someone stole the radiation source to a radiotherapy machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

A choice bit:

On September 24, Ivo, Devair's brother, scraped dust out of the source, taking it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the cement floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate a sandwich while sitting on the floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, and applying it to her body, showed it off to her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the sandwich she was consuming; she eventually absorbed 1.0 GBq, total dose 6.0 Gy

It glows, let's use it for makeup.

--
BMO

Re:Oh boy!

[lobiusmoop]

Reminded me more of Davd Hahn - thought he was maybe up to his old tricks again and looking for a large amount of Americium (not from fire alarms this time though).

Re:Oh boy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Category 3 means this is maybe 1/1000 to 1/100,000 as strong as the source in Goiania, and it's a single metal rod, not a large container of powder. Very different scenario. Industrial radiography sources are ubiquitous and are lost/damaged on a regular basis with minimal consequences.

Re:Oh boy!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

TFA(to the best of my layman's understanding) suggests that this one is a stainless steel pipe with an Americum source behind a beryllium window.

If some dumbass cuts it open, or decides to look down the tube for an extended period, things will get bad; but as long as it is mechanically undisturbed it won't be a huge deal.

The Goiania incident was particularly nasty because the source was opened and Caesium chloride(started out as a dust, also readily water-soluble, for extra pollution potential...) went all over the place. Had nobody opened the source, exposure would have been trivial. Incidents like that are(part of) the reason why the graphic designers behind the nuclear trefoil attempted to come up with something that was overtly threatening looking, even to somebody who might not speak English or even be literate in their local language.

, stay a minimum of 25 feet away..

[Chrisq]

From the picture I would say that if you get close enough to read the "Danger Radioactive" you've already got problems.

Radioactive tool? It can only be...

[wonkey_monkey]

...Homer Simpson!

I actually want to mod myself down for that one.

I saw the name of the company

[SlippyToad]

Halliburton: Endangering American Lives, With Taxpayer Dollars!

God, if there were ever a corporation that needed to be dissolved in a vat of acid and the remains scattered to the far corners of the earth, Halliburton is it. They are the epitome of casual, incompetent, expensive evil.

Re:Should only be a problem if ingested

[jbeaupre]

But in California they force fed smoke detectors to lab rats. And they died.

Moral of the story: don't feed smoke detectors to rats if you value your life.