(April 26, 1996) On 1 Feb. 1996, NDC Systems Inc. in Irwindale, California (US), a company licensed to produce backscatter gauges using radioactive material, discovered a leaking Americium-241 sealed source.
(451.4462) WISE-Amsterdam - The source was manufactured in France by Saclay Company. On Feb. 5, NDC detected greater than 60,000 DPM Alpha contamination from the Am-241 oxide powder in some work areas. The affected areas were closed off and NDC began cleaning up. The clean-up was finished more than a month later, on March 13. Meanwhile, on 8 Feb., urine samples were collected from 16 NDC employees and sent to Albuquerque for analysis. The analysis showed that two employees had an internal contamination of 170 Rem effective dose equivalent. The two were sent to the Department of Energy's Transuranic facility in Richland (Hanford), for lung, liver and skeleton counts, further evaluations, and medical treatment.
Source: US NRC; Event number 30137, last update: 20 March 1996, via nukenet@envirolink.org
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