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The danger of these kinds of "dirty bombs" is less than the scaremongers in the media would have you believe.

Yes, you could spread radioactivity over an area. A relatively small area. Done just right, about the same size area as an accident in a chemical plant would endanger -- i.e., enough to displace a few hundred homes and a dozen or so businesses, but hardly any more damage than the sort we already take in stride when a train carrying tank cars of dangerous chemicals derails.

And like a chemical spill, the moment an attack like this occurs, the evacuations would start and the actual amount of danger to people would be low. It would just make for an environmental mess, but again, over a relatively small area.

Some uninformed alarmists have tried to paint pictures of millions of people with radiation poisoning and entire regions made uninhabitable, but that's simply ridiculous.

"It would just make for an environmental mess, but again, over a relatively small area."

kind of like Love Canal?

-I guess it depends where it's set off and how. Like suppose they set one off at another place that has the potential to create more smoke and fire over an even larger area. Like, suppose they set one off at a LNG storage tank or refinery,or at one of the other chemical places you mentioned. Suppose it's attached to a rail tanker car and setoff as that car passes through another area with something else flammable/and or explosive in nature. An alternative might be setting one off in a major city's water reservoir. Hmmm, how about downtown wall street, how much collateral damage is there if that area was dirty nuked, even for only a few block area, and for how long would the "inconvenience" last.

Bottom line is these guys have proven that they are completely competent when it comes to the "force multiplier" effect. They tend to use one small attack to create a larger attack, which leads then again to an even larger final outcome. It's their variation-in a way- on the daisy cutter. A smaller bang leads to much larger results. Their attacks 'directly" seem to be primers for the real goal. One inch bladed knives led to what, 7 major US important buildings down, huge loss of life, and we are still under the ramifications of what happened. All from one inch long knives. If they can do that, starting out with a bigger weapon might be possible for them to have a huge outcome.

I'm not saying that it would be either totally devastating, but I guess I dispute the notion that it could "only" be minimal.

Somewhat true, but what if the highjackers that went into the WTC and Pentagon had a few 3 or 4 foot long Cobalt rods in their checked luggage? As long as it is taking to clean up the WTC, you could multiply that time by 10 fold if you added a radiation threat.