Posted on 10/14/2014 9:06:07 AM PDT by BansheeBill
BOISE -- Crews are still trying to sort through unknown substances in a Boise apartment that could contain low levels of radiation. The Environmental Protection Agency began cleaning up the mess found inside a unit at The Renaissance at Hobble Creek.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been investigating the case along with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
The EPA began cleaning the apartment, stairs, and sidewalk where they say traces of the potentially hazardous material were found.
Last Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission interviewed the tenant who was suspected of buying and selling radioactive material on eBay. Once the NRC arrived at the apartment, they noticed many suspected radioactive and hazardous substances.
A hazardous materials response team came to assess conditions in the apartment. (snip) Weigel says the two people who live in the apartment were trying to separate radioactive material from store-bought goods such as smoke detectors. It is not clear why they were trying to get the radioactive material. Their names have not been released, and police say they won't be charged.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktvb.com ...
I wonder if they belong to any ‘religious’ group?
Could it be an Omega?
Possibly they are honored guests from other lands?
Yawn.
Is this going to be another idiot bureaucrats blunder off in a panic over uranium pottery glaze story?
We get that sort of incident every few years and the complete derth of information coupled with apparent governmental embarrassment makes this suspect.
FYI: Idaho is a muzzie refugee destination.
“1990s: During the 1990s Idaho resettled over 5,000 refugees, more than half of which were from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Civil war, ethnic cleansing and unchecked violence forced millions of Bosnians to flee their homeland, and the subsequent impossibility of return for many led to a major resettlement effort by the U.S. The other half of the refugees arriving in the 1990s originated from other European countries, Africa, East Asia, the Near East, Central Asia and the Caribbean.
Bosnian Muslims subjected to ethnic cleansing and genocide
Croatian Serbs caught up in border conflicts and territorial disputes
Roma who were caught in the conflict ensuing from the breakup of Yugoslavia
Ethnic Albanians from Kosovo
2000s: From 2000 to 2005, Idaho resettled nearly 2,800 refugees. In addition, at least 200 refugees originally resettled in other states moved to Idaho during that period. The breakdown based on country of origin is as follows: two-thirds, or 67%, came from Europe and Central Asia (primarily Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Russia); 24% from Africa (a large majority from Somalia, Sudan, and Liberia); and the remaining 9% from six countries in East Asia, Latin America and the Near East.
In 2006 and 2007, 1,284 refugees were resettled in Idaho. African refugees from Burundi, Congo, Somalia, Togo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan and Cameroonaccounted for 40% . The nations of origin for the other top two groups of refugees arriving in Idaho during the last two years include the former Soviet Union (35%) and East Asia (40%). Although not a large refugee population currently, the numbers of refugees from the Near East/South Asia (i.e. Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan) will continue to grow as the recent resettlement efforts sparked by the War in Iraq increase in the United States.
Not to mention uranium glass.
Huh, the ‘radiation’ described in the story is .5 to 1.5mR, which last I checked indicated exposure over a year not radiation emitted... (Typical person living in the building would experience 334mR from environmental radiation over a year...)
So I have to assume the media didn’t copy down the right information from the press conference yet again.
OTOH you can use the material to make sensitive instruments, like neutron diffractometers & scintillators & such. This is actually quite fun. But don't do it where you live. Get a lab with a fume hood and other safety gear because you're going to need some strong acid to do it right and accidents with strong acids are unpleasant for the unprepared.
Probably not the wisest thing to concoct in an apartment, and likely against local ordinance (probably didn't have a business license, probably didn't comply with their lease, etc...)
But nothing I can find in a quick browse online indicate any need for the extensive cleanup and testing going on. Just your tax dollars at work. (Oh, and if you sell radioactive materials online, you too can expect this treatment...)
That makes sense. I would still like to see a photo of these industrious entrepreneurs.
“Yes, a muzzie destination, but it appears these people were making radioactive samples to sell to people who paid loads of money for radiation detectors, so they have something to measure against.”
Many old colored marbles have sufficient radiation to test geiger counters.
It doesn’t take thousands. A little of this and a little of that and you have a dirty device.
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
Mantles from Aladdin lamps work for testing detectors.
What mosque do they attend?
“Not to mention uranium glass.”
The old Fiesta Ware from the 1930’s is a lot hotter than the uranium glass. I’ve tested both.
Oddly the new packaging on the mantles does not have the warning the old ones had... I was furious when a friend of mine knocked the ash of an old mantle onto my coat... the coat I was I was going to have to get through airport security the next day.
I was ready for the anal probe as a result.
It was alarming how ignorant and careless some people can be about these mantles... I was held up at the same time as a 13 year old little girl that had just come from a soccer game in her uniform and the fertilizer for the soccer field tripped off the bomb detector.
Or thorium gas mantles.
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