Dirty dump - For The Record

Sierra, Sept-Oct, 2002

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, since 1996 the United States has lost track of nearly 1,500 items tainted with radioactive material, from industrial cameras to emergency-exit signs. Since monitoring this equipment is left largely to the universities, hospitals, construction companies, and military operations that use it, the NRC doesn't know whether the contraptions have been stolen, fanning concern that their radioactive components could wind up in a terrorist's "dirty bomb." But many of the missing items simply end up in landfills and scrap yards, where they can endanger anyone exposed to them.

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