A radioactive device was extracted from a scrap metal Dumpster in an alley between the Heating and Cooling Plant and the Meeman Journalism Building on April 12.
Sharon Whitaker, who works inside Meeman, said she was alarmed when she looked out her window and saw men in HAZMAT suits inside the Dumpster.
“I just kept thinking in my mind, ‘Something is not right,’” she said. “Whenever you put on a HAZMAT suit, it’s got to be something that has to do with your health.”
The radioactivity in the Dumpster was first detected on April 5 by monitors at Sims Metal Management, where a truck took the bin to dispose of the waste.
The metal processing company routinely scans the contents of bins brought there to check for radioactive substances before admitting their contents into its facilities.
Monitors initially detected radiation levels that were 35 percent above normal background radiation, also known as naturally-occurring radiation, in the bin brought from The University of Memphis.
The truck carrying the Dumpster was scanned two additional times, producing slightly lower percentage results before the Dumpster was returned to its original location on campus that afternoon.
Alton Simpson, director of environmental health and safety and The University’s radiation safety officer, was immediately notified by Physical Plant staff who covered the Dumpster with a tarp to stop the potential spread of contaminants.

Federal and state environmental officials have discovered a potpourri of thousands of pounds of chemicals – many of them potentially hazardous – at a Tacoma Tideflats site that was engulfed by a sudden fire March 28.

Those chemicals, most of them stored in two old trucks untouched by the blaze, included 15 pounds of mercury, several hundred pounds of highly flammable sodium and mildly radioactive uranium.

That site at 4111 E. 11th St. near Marine View Drive drew some three dozen firefighters and a dozen pieces of equipment when it burst into flames about 10:30 a.m. The smoky fire destroyed a single-story house used by a chemical recycling company and threatened a nearby warehouse and two trucks used for chemical storage.

Firefighters initially attacked the fire in the house but withdrew to defensive positions when it became apparent that the building and the surrounding areas contained unknown quantities of chemicals. The site is in an industrial area adjacent to the Hylebos Waterway, but homes are atop a hill overlooking the site.

When the fire department received the call, responders thought the site might be a pallet-recycling company. Later investigation showed the site was used by a company, NW Chemical Recycling, to repackage surplus chemicals for sale.

Neighboring businesses said workers from the company told them the fire had begun with a flaming can of paint. Later investigations showed the blaze started when sodium chlorite that was being repackaged into smaller containers burst into flame. The chemical is used in bleaching and stripping of pulp and paper, among other uses.

BUCHANAN – Entergy, the company that owns the Indian Point nuclear power plants at Buchanan, will pay a $1.2 million civil penalty to the state based on a consent order with the Department of Environmental Conservation.

The fine stems from violations of the Clean Water Act, Chemical Bulk Storage Regulations and Navigation Laws, when a 2010 explosion and fire at the plant resulted in petroleum released into the Hudson River.

Entergy also agreed to upgrade its containment systems which protect the river from accidental spills and unpermitted releases.

In November 2010, the #21 main transformer failed and resulted in an explosion that breached the walls of the transformer causing a fire and release of petroleum used to cool the transformers into the Hudson River.

The DEC said its investigation revealed long-standing structural conditions prevented the containment moat from retaining the petroleum as designed. More than 10,000 gallons of oil were recovered from the transformer, the containment moat and areas outside the containment moat including the discharge canal, the Hudson River shoreline and the river.

A fire broke out on Sunday at a Moscow nuclear research center that houses a non-operational 60-year-old atomic reactor, emergency officials reported as Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom said the blaze had not been accompanied by any open flames and posed no threat of a radiation leak.

Fire crews were called to the Foothills Hospital on Wednesday morning to deal with a hazardous material spill.

A courier was picking up bio-waste from the hospital when some of it spilled on him at around 9:00 a.m.

The worker was concerned about the possibility that the waste contained radioactive material so he sounded the alarm.

The Calgary Fire Department Hazardous Materials Response Team rushed to the hospital and decontaminated the man and one other person in the ambulance bay.

It was later learned, that the material in question was human waste.

"We had several hazardous materials individuals respond from our office, Haztech and Hazmat, and with the monitors they did identify the subsequent information that we were not exposed to radiation nor was anyone on the site," said CFD North Chief, Bill Peters

The mysterious box with radiation hazard labels on it that caused some alarm when it was found Wednesday in a Dorchester basement was opened this morning by a federal expert at a Boston Fire Department training facility.

It turned out to contain nothing but rocks.

“It was just someone’s collection that they left in the basement of this house,” said Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald.

He said a federal inspector with a nuclear incident response team opened the box. The rocks are “perfectly safe,” he said.

MacDonald said fire officials would see if a local college with a geography department might want the rocks.

The box was found shortly before 2 p.m. at 64 Julian St. A hazardous materials response was initiated, but tests soon found that the radiation emitted by the box was within acceptable limits.

A radioactive box was found in the basement of a building in Roxbury this afternoon, but the radiation it emitted was within acceptable limits, and the fire department will dispose of it, authorities said.

The padlocked wooden box was found at 64 Julian St. in the basement of a three-story building, shortly before 2 p.m., officials said. Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said the bomb squad and the fire department’s hazardous materials unit were called in to investigate.

Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said low levels of radiation were detected but they posed no apparent threat. No injuries were reported.

NECN) - The MBTA's Haymarket station was shut down on Tuesday, due to a possible hazmat situation.

Crews responded to the scene around 10:45 a.m. to the area adjacent to the bus station. While making a routing stop, the Boston Police Truck Team got readings of a possible radiation leak from the back of a 20' box truck.

Boston Fire Department Hazmat crews responded, and their meters got low levels of radiation from the truck.

There was no leak, official said. Radiation levels were within accepted levels.

Separate incidents at Idaho nuke facility wake-up calls for downwind Wyoming

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-It was a rough week at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) last week. The 890-square-mile nuclear energy facility located between Arco, and Idaho Falls, Idaho, experienced two unrelated emergencies three days apart.

On November 8, 16 employees at the Zero Power Physics Reactor (ZPPR), a fast reactor core decommissioned in 1992, were exposed to radioactive material when a shipping container of nuclear fuel accidentally opened. Seven of those employees showed external skin contamination and were immediately decontaminated; six of them had positive nasal swipes. A lung scan performed on at least two employees showed traces of Americium-241, an isotope that indicates the employees may have inhaled plutonium.

Four of the 16 workers received treatment for internal radiation exposure. INL officials said ongoing tests and monitoring of exposed workers will likely continue for several weeks. Officials at the lab also said all radioactive material was contained within the facility and there was never any threat to the public.

On November 11, emergency personnel were again scrambled at the lab when a fire was reported some time before 10 a.m. on Friday. INL spokesman Erik Simpson reported that 11 Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) employees were evacuated for medical attention. One worker was transported to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center for burns.

Crews were able to reenter the building at 2 p.m. that day and confirmed the fire was caused by a sodium reaction. Sodium was used as a coolant for the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II until the early 1990s. When the reactor was shut down, the sodium coolant was drained; however, ICP employees are currently tasked with removing residual sodium from the Sodium Boiler Building before demolishing the facility.

No injuries and no spill was reported.

(Memphis, TN 11/15/11) A truck carrying uranium fuel rods was rear-ended on I-40 westbound near U.S. Highway 64 Tuesday night.

Hazmat crews, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis police and Memphis fire personnel responded quickly.

At one point, crews blocked a 500 sq. ft. distance around the vehicle, and two right lanes were blocked.

No fuel rods fell off the truck. The Emergency Management Agency said that their staff also used small devices to monitor the level of radiation in the area. An alarm would sound at the detection of radiation, and the device provides a read on the level of radiation present. 

The EMA was not able to say what type of fuel rods were being transported on the truck. Often time, uranium rods are used for nuclear power plants or for hospital radiation therapy.

The EMA also said that vehicles carrying such rods is not unusual in the area. Since Memphis is a distribution hub, many hazardous materials may be transported by rail or by interstate every day.

Emergency crews were relieved no one was hurt and that no spill occurred, but they took every safety precaution necessary, as they would in a more serious spill.

(Reuters) - A sodium fire erupted on Friday at a U.S. Nuclear laboratory in Idaho, burning one worker, but the incident posed no risk to the public, the lab said.

The incident was the second this week at the sprawling facility. Earlier this week, at least six workers were contaminated by low-level plutonium radiation and 11 others were exposed following a mishap at the lab.

The chemical fire on Friday broke out in a building adjacent to a decommissioned, experimental reactor at the U.S. Department of Energy's sprawling Idaho National Laboratory that is cooled by sodium, lab spokeswoman Sara Prentice said.

The fire may have been caused by a sodium reaction, Prentice said.

When the Kane County Sheriff's Office Bomb Unit opened the refrigerator that was allegedly giving off nuclear radiation near Coal City Friday afternoon, they found a 2-liter bottle of Squirt, according to Deputy Chief Greg DeGroot of the Coal City Fire Department.

At about 3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 14, the Grundy County HazMat team responded to a report of a small refrigerator found in a ditch on Spring Road, west of Carbon Hill, near Coal City. The refrigerator was wrapped in nuclear warning tape.

When DeGroot arrived at the scene, he said his personal radiation detector was reading two microrems, not an unusual reading. But as he got closer, the readings went up to six and then 11 microrems.

So he backed off and a bomb unit was requested.

After speaking to a farmer, however, the original bomb unit request was canceled because he reported the refrigerator had been there for about two weeks, Grundy County Sheriff Terry Marketti said Friday.

Later, the unit was called again to the scene and eventually found the pop bottle. 

Neither the bottle nor the refrigerator were giving off radiation, DeGroot said. The radioactivity was coming from the farming fertilizer used in that area.

The fertilizer contained potash, a soluble source of potassium used in agricultural fertilizer, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's website, www.usgs.gov. 

COAL CITY — At about 3 p.m. Friday, the Grundy HazMat team responded to a report of a small refrigerator giving off radiation readings near Coal City.

The refrigerator was found in a ditch along the side of Spring Road, west of Carbon Hill Road, near Coal City.

A bomb squad was requested to respond, but after authorities spoke to a local farmer who said he had seen the refrigerator in the ditch at least two weeks ago, the request was canceled, according to Grundy County Sheriff Terry Marketti.

At approximately 4:20 p.m., however, the Kane County Bomb Squad was again called to the scene.

The refrigerator was reportedly found wrapped in nuclear tape and was discovered to be giving off radiation readings.

Marketti said authorities have yet to find out what is inside the refrigerator. Once clean-up is complete, an investigation will be done to find out where the refrigerator came from.

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) - A sealed device used to check whether radiation detectors are working properly at Brookhaven National Laboratory leaked a small amount of radioactivity last month, lab authorities said. There was no threat to public health or the environment, but the lab has halted some operations while it investigates.

The radioactivity was later found on two employees, in a parking lot and private vehicle, and in one of the facility's buildings, the lab said. The lab is reviewing policies, procedures and training programs.

"Even the leak of a small amount of radiation is unacceptable," George Goode, assistant director for environmental safety and health at the lab on eastern Long Island, said Monday. "We are treating this very seriously."

The lab announced in a statement Friday that it shut down all radiological operations following the Sept. 28 leak. The leak was first reported Monday by the Long Island Business News.

Two employees were checking radiation detectors when a "sealed source" device containing a small amount of cesium-137 stored inside a lead container tipped over in the employees' pickup truck as they made their rounds, Goode said. The device was described as a small brass rod, about 8 inches long and a half-inch across.

A contractor came into contact with medical waste with low-level radiation in a dumpster on the Walter Reed Bethesda campus Monday evening, according to Fire and Rescue assistant chief Scott Graham.

Fire and Rescue units were called to the military hospital around 8p.m. Eleven people were evaluated but no one was injured or taken to the hospital, including the person who came into contact with the contaminant, Graham said. The contractor had the substance on his gloves, Graham said.

The contractor's gloves and outer clothing was removed and the person was dry-decontaminated, Graham said.

Walter Reed Bethesda officials have a cleanup team responsible for rendering the material safe and properly disposing of it, Graham said.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- Idaho Falls Police detoured traffic on 17th Street for about an hour in front of the mall because a pedestrian found a couple of white tubes labeled with radioactive symbols.
The tubes were found laying in the gutter near Little Caesars Pizza parking lot.
Hazmat crews with the help of Idaho National Laboratory personnel tested the tubes and determined they were not radioactive.
The Division Chief for the fire department said the tubes are labeled with Iodine 131. Its used to treat thyroid conditions, he said.
They believe the tubes fell off a medical carrier truck, which was identified from the packaging and called to come pick them up.

The eastbound lanes of I-20 near Six Flags reopened early Tuesday, nearly six hours after a truck hauling low-level radioactive material overturned.

Crews were expected to return to the area near Six Flags Parkway at 10 a.m. to finish cleaning up debris along the shoulder of the interstate, according to the state Department of Transportation.

The Cobb County Fire Department's hazmat team was called to the scene overnight to assist with the clean-up.

"Our hazmat team got on the scene and they did find some low-grade readings of some sort of medical-related radioactive material," Cobb fire spokeswoman Denell Boyd told WSB.

No injuries were reported in the wreck.

PARIS (AP) — One person died and another was seriously injured in an explosion Monday in a site that treats nuclear waste in southern France, the country's nuclear safety body said, adding that no radioactive leaks have been detected.
The Nuclear Safety Authority said three other people suffered lesser injuries in the blast at an oven in the Centraco nuclear site.
The Centraco site is located next to another nuclear site, Marcoule, located in Languedoc-Roussillon, in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea.
"According to initial information, the explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity," the agency said in a statement.
Officials from France's EDF power company, whose subsidiary operates Centraco, stressed that there was no nuclear reactor on the site and that no waste treated at the site of the explosion came from a reactor.

NEW DELHI—Six senior professors at the University of Delhi face up to 2 years in prison over their roles in India's first fatality from accidental exposure to radiation. On 2 September, Delhi police charged the university's former science dean and five colleagues in the chemistry department with "causing death by negligence" and violating the Atomic Energy Act over the improper disposal of a derelict gamma-ray research device in 2010.

The unprecedented case has shaken India's scientific community. "This should serve as a wakeup call," says metallurgist Srikumar Banerjee, chair of the Atomic Energy Commission in Mumbai. "The responsibility of maintaining the equipment was clearly with the university authorities."

The accident occurred after a University of Delhi official ordered a campus-wide spring cleaning to create space for newly recruited staff members. An auction committee cleared the sale of a Gamma cell 220 research irradiator, which a university chemist had imported from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in 1968 but which had lain unused since 1985. On 26 February 2010, the university auctioned the 3500-kilogram device to a scrap dealer. Seven scrapyard workers, unaware that the machine they were dismantling contained cobalt-60—a radioactive, gray-blue metal resembling nickel—fell ill; one died.

Two sisters cleaning out their elderly father's house about noon Saturday could have used a hand from Superman when they came across a box of apparently radioactive rocks.

However, the Indianapolis Fire Department's hazardous materials team saved the day, and no one was injured.

The sisters, Anita Cohee, 56, and Diane Serban, 58, were going through some of their father's things in the attic of his home in the 5500 block of Skyridge Drive when they found a small box labeled "radioactive ore," according to a news release from IFD spokeswoman Rita Burris.

The box also included the notation "Uranium Thorium/Detection Corporation North Hollywood California." Inside the box, the sisters found nine plastic-wrapped rocks in layers of cotton.

They closed the box, got everyone out of the house and called 911.

Firefighters and HazMat Team 13 arrived and got a positive reading for radiation. A second reading with a different kind of meter gave them a reading of 13 microrems. The HazMat team said that was a small amount of radioactive material -- about 1/100,000th of one rem, Burris said.

Still, they packed the rocks into an official yellow drum and removed them from the Northeastside house. The drum will be turned over to the Marion County Health Department for proper disposal.

ASTORIA, Queens (WABC) -- A hazardous material teams investigated a possible radiation scare at a house in Queens.

A box with a radiation symbol was found inside an apartment on 45th Street in Astoria Tuesday.

Newscopter 7 flew over the building while Hazmat and the bomb squad sorted through
The owner died, and donated everything to charity.
While his belongings were being packed up, a suspicious box was discovered.

It tested positive for trace amounts of radiation.

It turns out the box was full of rocks that emit low levels of radiation.

A “very old” piece of surveying equipment inside the Tip O’Neill Building triggered a Level 3 Hazmat Response late this afternoon on Causeway Street after it caused radiation-detecting badges worn by two federal protective service officers in the building to go off, fire officials said.

The dosimeters went off around 4:10 p.m., prompting the officers to call fire officials, said spokesman Steve MacDonald.

The piece of shoebox-sized equipment, which is now boxed up and in the process of being removed from the site, was sitting on a first floor storage room shelf, MacDonald said.

There is no danger or threat to the Pierce College campus, according to the hazardous materials team (Hazmat) following a chemical spill during construction Friday.
Hazmat confirmed that the chemical vault construction located in the old Chemistry 800 Building workers broke into during renovation projects near Parking Lot 7 posed no dangerous threats to students, faculty and the workers involved.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded along with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) and LA County Health Department to the suspected Hazmat emergency.
The Chemistry Building and old Child Development Center have been left unused since summer 2010, when the Center for Sciences and new Child Development Center opened.
The underground vault held eight containers, four of which had low-level radioactive materials inside.  Following further inspection, the Los Angeles Fire Department found none of the four to be broken or unsealed.

Richmond HazMat crews investigate a fire at a VCU Medical Center building downtown.

Just after 3:15 am, firefighters were called to the 1200 block of E. Marshall Street to the Medical Sciences building for a fire alarm.

When fire crews arrived they found a piece of equipment that was labeled "radioactive" smoking. Eight people were quarantined for possible radiation exposure.

HazMat crews determined that there were not any heightened radioactive levels, and the material inside the machine was not released.

U.S. 40 in Uintah County was closed for several hours Sunday morning after a pickup truck carrying radioactive equipment crashed.

The crash happened east of Roosevelt at about 4:20 a.m., said Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Amy Fallows.

A HAZMAT team was called out because the truck was carrying equipment used to X-ray well sites, Fallows said. The equipment contained a small amount of iridium, a radioactive element, but none spilled, police said. The equipment was in “a very strong container meant to withstand impacts.”

The driver of the truck was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, Fallows said.

The highway was reopened around 10:30 a.m.

Aaron Falk

LONE TREE - HazMat crews responded to Sky Ridge Medical Center emergency room on Friday for something that turned out to be a rock.

A hospital spokeswoman says emergencies were diverted to other hospitals during the HazMat investigation.

It turned out that a person came in with a rock in their pocket that had a low level of radiation that set off detectors.

The hospital says it was nothing sinister and is describing it as an accident.

After tests, no radiation was found in the emergency room and the all clear was given.

New Delhi, June 2 (IANS) The radiation leak fiasco here that claimed one life was a “wake-up call” for Delhi University. Its chemistry department, which came under heavy fire for the incident, is now working on a three-pronged strategy to make lab safety a primary concern.

“Lab safety has taken a whole new meaning after the Cobalt-60 incident…it has come like a wake-up call for us because precautions and lab safety are not always taken very seriously,” A.K. Bakshi, who was appointed head of the department of chemistry after the radiation leak, told IANS.

“We have realised that we should not wait for another accident to happen and therefore have come up with a three-pronged strategy to ensure that lab safety is not compromised by anyone and at any cost,” Bakshi said.

The source of the leak at a scrap market in west Delhi’s Mayapuri area - in which one person was killed and six were affected - was a radioactive gamma cell containing Cobalt-60 that was auctioned as scrap by Delhi University’s chemistry department over two months ago.

The incident posed serious questions on the usage, storage and disposal of radioactive material which are often used for experiments in chemistry labs.

Bakshi said: “As part of the strategy, we will first have a series of workshops - initially for the teachers of the university on lab safety. Experts will be called from various institutions at these workshops. Teachers already know what precautions need to be taken, but these will simply brush up their skills and help them train the students better.”

The workshops will also touch upon the subject of disposal of chemical and radioactive waste, as well as their storage and usage.

“Besides students, the special and formal training will also help teachers impart knowledge to the laboratory staff better, as they are the ones who spend the most amount of time in the labs,” he added.

The workshops, Bakshi said, will be conducted before the academic session begins in July.

A lab safety manual which charts out the dos and don’ts while conducting an experiment is also being prepared. This will be for both the undergraduate and the post graduate levels.

“I am even thinking of suggesting that in the chemistry practical exams, some marks should be reserved for a student’s discipline in following the safety manual through the year. This will make students more aware and careful,” Bakshi told IANS.

Uploading e-learning material on lab safety, how to handle various chemicals and apparatus and other such things on the university’s newly launched e-learning portal is the third strategy.

“Considering that lab staff is the backbone of maintaining a laboratory, I am also thinking of instituting an award for the best maintained lab. This will motivate the staff to keep the lab clean, mark the chemical bottles and ensure the overall safety,” he added.

“We have more than 100 chemistry labs in different colleges in the university and 3,000-4,000 students. Through all these initiatives we just want to make the students feel they are cared for and that the labs are a safe place to work and learn in,” Bakshi said.

The Georgetown airport was shut down about for about an hour Tuesday as hazmat and EPA crews handled a potentially serious situation.

The incident began when a cement truck ran over a device containing radio active material. Hazmat and EPA crews rushed to the scene after reports that a substance, called cesium, might have been leaking from a device that measures the depth of asphalt. The cement truck was working on the new runway and ran over the device without knowing. 

After some investigation, crews realized the cesium did not leak.

A couple flights were affected by the airport shutdown.