FBI Clears Halliburton Crew in Loss of Radioactive Tool

FBI Clears Halliburton Crew in Loss of Radioactive Tool

www.bloomberg.com

FBI Clears Halliburton Crew in Loss of Radioactive Tool
By Kathy Warbelow and Brian Wingfield - 2012-09-14T16:08:59Z

Halliburton Co. (HAL) crew members who lost a radioactive rod used in drilling wells in West Texas weren’t guilty of criminal conduct, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said as a hunt for the tool entered a fourth day.

FBI officials working with the Texas Department of Transportation questioned three employees who were unable to locate the device this week after it went missing on a 130-mile (209-kilometer) route from Pecos to Odessa, according to a Nuclear Regulatory

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The rod contained americium and beryllium two very toxic substances. You have to come into some kind of physical contact with them but still both are very toxic. Also the lock was missing so I not sure how a lock just falls off and then the thing inside the case. And they said they didnt find it on the side of the road so either some one found it or some one stole it.

en.wikipedia.org...

www.bloomberg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

“It’s not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form,” Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the health department, said in an interview. “But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet.”

Doesn't produce radiation in any "extremely dangerous form", but it's best to stay back 20-25 feet.... okaaay.

Oil-field service companies lower the 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. While the loss of such a probe 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, Van Deusen said.

Vanished from locked box along with the lock, hmm. Wonder how much these would fetch on the black market? Sounds like something companies rushing to cash in on the fracking craze would love to have.

reply to post by BriGuyTM90

I wonder if the one they lost says "Radioactive-do not handle" on it like the different sample shown?

The biggest risk would be if it's not marked like that and someone finds it and doesn't know what they've got, it could be bad.

I have been following the pattern of thefts in Texas of radioactive materials since over a year ago off and on.

There is a pattern. There are multiple incidents of thefts whereby the lock boxes were broken into and various tools with radioactive sources inside them were taken.

Also there is a prolific pattern of people stealing EXIT signs with radioactive sources in them.

You know what this means right?
Several possibilities...

1) Someone is building a mini-reactor of some sort in their basement?

2) Some group is attempting to gain materials for "dirty bombs"?

3) There is a black market where these materials are sold for whatever reasons?

If anyone else can think of reasons why these materials are being taken post it.
We are talking literally dozens of cases in the last year or so.
It just almost never hits the news, but you can research this all on your own by using the official logs and reports.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I really don't think it's "lost" however. They claim to have found the locked box it is normally kept in with the "lock missing", and the tool gone. That would seem to indicate it was stolen. I would hazard a guess it is a very expensive tool.

An accident?!

Oh no, who would have thought accidents happen. Treachery is afoot I tell you!

Here is a thread I wrote over a year ago listing some of the then recent theft events of radioactive materials in Texas.

Someone is stealing radioactive materials

I listed multiple events, and this was post dated 5-6-11

Consider the huge amount of thefts that had to have occurred since then!

Where is homeland security? Why do we even need them again?

Originally posted by iamhobo
An accident?!

Oh no, who would have thought accidents happen. Treachery is afoot I tell you!

Check my link above, it's pretty much solid evidence leading toward the conclusion that treachery is indeed afoot.
Not a cool idea to consider but reality isn't cool all the time.

I'm flagging this to bring attention to the issue.
This could lead to being linked with a future dirty bomb attack or something wild like that.

This issue needs way way more attention from everyone, extreme peril exists if we ignore it.
They need to allocate far more resources to investigating this and catching whoever is behind it asap!

Too bad all of our resources are devoted to complete idiocy like arresting petty fake criminals who don't harm anyone meanwhile the bad guys are getting away with playing with nuclear materials down the street!

Makes me think it's a conspiracy the way they are turning a blind eye and pretending they don't have the forensics ability to track down where this stuff is going and who is behind all of it.

Am I really paranoid for being alarmed by someone stealing radioactive materials right under our noses for over a year for certain, combined with the fact no one cares even the law enforcement agencies seem to not really consider it a priority? Of course it's alarming, our human society is really messed up.

That's funny, I was just reading how Halliburton was found to have provided Nuclear Materials and Technology to Iran in the last decade.

Now they are loosing other important Nuclear stuff?

Sounds fishy to me.

~Tenth

Yeah I thinking If some one just found one and took it home with them not knowing what it was they could conamintate there house with it. But thats very interesting Mflash Ill have to look into your thread when I get a chance.

Surely we are not talking about the same Halliburton Company that gets most of the Military Black Budget projects and the same Halliburton Company that was responsible for creating the FEMA black box coffins.

This has some serious potential to get real ugly folks.

More then likely they lost it intentionally.

reply to post by BriGuyTM90


Well.... that was anticlimactic? I was really expecting a bright glowing green rod like from the Simpsons.. I imagined it bouncing around town. That just looks like a metal ...... thing.. nothing special, no light effects.. boorrring..

If this has been numerous cases over a period a year or more then why isn't the oilfield service industry being required to do better job of handling this material.

Guess in today's world, there is not use wondering why.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
reply to post by BriGuyTM90

 

Well.... that was anticlimactic? I was really expecting a bright glowing green rod like from the Simpsons.. I imagined it bouncing around town. That just looks like a metal ...... thing.. nothing special, no light effects.. boorrring..

Its not my fault you have a false impression of what nuclear material looks like. I wasn't expecting to see a green glowing rod because I'm aware of the fact that nuclear material doesn't actually glow. With a little research we can find out that the only time there is any kinda of glow involved with radioactive material is when nuclear fuel is undergoing nuclear fission or is newly spent and even then it isn't glowing the material around it is glowing from being ionized. Its called Cherenkov radiation. Also not all nuclear material is nuclear fuel.

www.britannica.com...

So sense the headline never mentions nuclear fuel being involved I don't know why any one would be expecting to see anything glowing. And the article isn't even about the visual description of the item that was lost, I don't know why that was what was important to you. That's like me saying a story about a bus drive kidnapping a bunch of kids is boring because the guy didn't look Otto.

edit on 15-9-2012 by BriGuyTM90 because: (no reason given)

reply to post by BriGuyTM90


Holy cow it was a sad attempt at being funny lol..

I hope whomever stole it doesn't mistake it for a sex toy

reply to post by Rockpuck


oh. Sorry I just thought you were being ignorant and trying to find something negative. I feel like a dick. ATS needs to come up with a sarcasm font or something. But at least we got some Simpsons references in the thread.

Originally posted by Thunderheart
I hope whomever stole it doesn't mistake it for a sex toy

Gamma Ray Emitting Personal Massagers, Sounds like a great marketing idea. There should be at least one in every house hold.