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"This business is going to get out of hand..."

Haven't heard a thing.

.

Where in NJ?

I heard Steve Emerson mention it on MSNBC shortly after the Ashcroft/Ridge briefing; the anchor said it was an unconfirmed report and that they were checking it out.

OK, as a New Yorker I can't help getting a dig into our great friends in the Garden State, so...how would anyone know there was a radioactive alert in Jersey?

I'll take a wild stab at what this is.....

Back during the Y2K frenzy, the Y2K nutters became obsessed with NRC event reports at the NRC website(which report everything from the slightest screw coming loose or whatsadohickey needing a new battery, to an emergency shutdown -which actually are fairly common - in every Nuke plant in the US.)

Included back then were reports every single time a piece of NRC-registered of radioactive material was missing or stolen.

This includes TENS of thousands of items, all sorts of fairly routine industrial and medical equipment, often with pretty trivial amounts of Cesium or something in them; it's not always (in fact, pretty much never is) a 50 lb. box of plutonium or something.

So you'd see one of these reports every couple days or so, somebody would have some piece of equipment they left in the back of their pickup truck and their pickup truck got stolen, etc. But I think due to regs there usually ends up being some sort of FBI involvement when it happens.

I vaguely remember reading something about the stolen or missing radioactive equipment item reports no longer being public since 9/11.

But it's not necessarily not routine.

...MSNBC Reporting FBI Checking Radioactive Alert NJ

Great, who pulled Gores finger?

It's abnormal for New Jersey to be radioactive? ;-)

"Hey.....I'm from Jersey, you from Jersey?"

Here's the story:

FEDS EXAMINE CARGO CONTAINER FOR RADIOACTIVITY

By WAYNE PARRY

The Associated Press

9/10/02 6:19 PM

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Federal authorities were examining a cargo container at Port Newark on Tuesday after traces of radioactivity were detected during a search for stowaways.

The container was aboard a ship at the former Sea-Land terminal at the seaport, a law enforcement source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The company is now known as APM Terminals.

The FBI, Port Authority police, the Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of Energy were examining the container, but there was no indication Tuesday evening that it contained a weapon, the source said.

"They're trying to determine if a reading detecting radiation is unusual or not, or if it's just part of the normal course of things," the source said.

The area was cordoned off about mid-afternoon.

The container first came to the attention of U.S. Customs inspectors conducting routine examinations of the cargo when they thought they heard sounds coming from inside it.

"They thought they heard some noises and they suspected smuggling," the source said.

Agents then examined the outside of the container with radiation detectors and determined there was some level of radioactivity in or near it. It was not immediately known what the level was, or if it was considered dangerous.

Calls to the agencies involved in the search were not immediately returned.

A man who answered the telephone at APM Terminals said the business was closed Tuesday evening, and that he did not know the status of the container search.

MSNBC has quite a follow up to the story you posted as it broke on Tuesday.

Ship searched for nuclear material

Initial tests found elevated radiation levels in cargo hold

NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES

Sept. 12 — U.S. Special Operations forces on Thursday joined members of the Energy Department’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team on board a Liberian-flagged container ship off the coast of New Jersey to search for nuclear material, Pentagon officials told NBC News. The search of the the M/V Palermo Senator was based primarily on intelligence suggesting a ship matching its description could be carrying nuclear material or a nuclear device into the United States, the officials said.

The Coast Guard ordered the ship back to sea, saying it wanted to ascertain if there was ‘a potential risk to public safety and security.’

THE SHIP, WHICH arrived in New York Harbor late Monday, was ordered back to sea on Wednesday as a result of the intelligence and initial tests showing slightly elevated radiation levels in its hold, the officials said.

A Coast Guard boarding team took command of the vessel at 2:30 a.m. and took it 6 to 12 miles offshore, saying it wanted to ascertain if there was “a potential risk to public safety and security.” A Coast Guard cutter was guarding the vessel.

Members of the Energy Department’s NEST team, charged with responding to nuclear emergencies, began to test the ship’s 655 containers later in the day.

The military team joining the hunt on Thursday was bringing specialized equipment capable of looking deep into the stacked containers.

The Pentagon officials, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said that the vessel was one of five searched upon arrival based on intelligence indicating that terrorists may be trying to bring nuclear material or a nuclear device into the United States.

After Coast Guard inspectors found unspecified “paperwork problems” and reported hearing some suspicious sounds in some of the vessel’s cargo holds, it was ordered to Port Newark/Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey for further checks.

There, tests by Energy Department inspectors produced contradictory results, with one showing elevated radiation levels and another indicating normal levels. As a result, the ship was ordered back to sea for a definitive determination on whether any radioactive material was on board.

A U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that the NEST scientists said the initial readings indicated the presence of both gamma and neutron emissions, which can be an indicator of an improvised nuclear device.

But the official stressed that there is nothing to indicate anything more than background radiation at this point.

The NEST squad was established in 1974 to seek out and dismantle “improvised nuclear devices,” but has been used over the years to investigate suspicious radiological sources.

MSNBC.com’s Mike Brunker, NBC News’ Jim Mikleszewski and Robert Windrem and The Associated Press contributed to this report.