Ever since the shocking discovery of three old casks of cesium-137 in an Oak Ridge scrapyard, there has been a bit of a hush-hush regarding their whereabouts and the ultimate disposition of the radioactive material (reported to be the optimum material for so-called dirty bombs). And the secretive treatment continues now, with the Department of Energy acknowledging that the casks -- retrieved from a scrapyard west of K-25 in October 2005 -- are still in Oak Ridge, reportedly housed in a safe and secure storage facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
DOE spokesman Mike Koentop confirmed that the casks are still at ORNL. At some (unspecified) point, the agency plans to dispose of the radioactive material, he said. About the only thing that's changed since I last reported on the cache of cesium is that it's now under the custodianship of UCOR, which replaced Bechtel Jacobs as the agency's Oak Ridge cleanup contractor in 2011.
The original source of the cesium and how it got to the Oak Ridge scrapyard are apparently not known, and the actual quantity of the radioactive material has been debated and disputed.
At the time of the event, the Tennessee's Department of Environment and Conservation was told that the casks contained 271,000 curies of cesium-137. That's a lot of hot stuff. Others suggested that number was way too high. John Owsley, TDEC's environmental oversight chief in Oak Ridge, said the original curie estimate was based on non-destructive assays of the casks.
In response to questions, TDEC spokeswoman Meg Lockhart said today that the state inspects the casks on an annual basis. "They are in safe and compliant storage," she said via email.
Lockhart said there has been no additional characterization of the casks since the initial testing.
"DOE Environmental Management's plans for the casks call for characterization and disposal," she said. "The disposal location will depend on the final characterization."
`
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2013/03/the-mysterious-cesium-casks.html