Police track down missing uranium in Fort Worth

 

FORT WORTH – A box containing a small amount of uranium apparently fell from a truck in North Fort Worth and was retrieved by a passer-by who took it home before turning it over to officials.

The package, which contains radioactive material from an X-ray camera, is used by industrial workers to photograph welds on pipelines, officials said. There were no leaks, and the box had not been tampered with, officials said.

The material may pose a slight health risk to someone coming in contact with it, officials said.

"There is a series of steps you have to go through to get that thing open," said Lt. Kent Worley, a Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman. "They're designed that way. You can't accidentally open it. Because it fell out of the truck, we wanted to make sure it didn't activate or that the family didn't manage to open it."

A man told Fort Worth fire officials he had found the box Monday after it had fallen from a truck along Blue Mound Road. The man took the box to his home in the 1200 block of Elaine Place and kept it for about 14 hours.

"It's clearly labeled 'radioactive,' " Lt. Worley said.

Police, firefighters and workers from Desert Industrial X-Ray of Odessa, which owns the box, searched for hours after learning it was missing, Lt. Worley said.

The man's wife saw news reports, apparently became afraid and called authorities, said Fort Worth Fire Battalion Chief James Johns.

"We didn't see any breach," Chief Johns said.

Company spokesman Doug Frye said the box weighs about 75 pounds, has two layers of security and is nearly impossible to open. Buried deep inside is radioactive material about the size of a pinhead, Mr. Frye said.

The box is supposed to be transported inside another locked box and bolted to a pickup fitted with a camper shell, he said.

The camper is actually a photography dark room used to develop images of pipe welds, Mr. Frye said. He described the driver as an experienced operator who accidentally left the box on the tail of the truck.

Richard Ratliff, radiation program officer for the Department of State Health Services, said his agency would conduct an administrative review to determine whether there were any violations concerning how the uranium was transported. Violations, if any, are $5,000 for each penalty, Mr. Ratliff said.

He said, however, that a preliminary investigation Tuesday by state inspectors verified that there was no leakage and they returned the box to Desert Industrial X-Ray.

"Nothing was compromised," Mr. Ratliff said. "That was the good part. They're probably relieved that it got back without any problems."