A radioactive mystery

Forrest M. Mims III

Everyone reading this is slightly radioactive. That's because a tiny fraction of the phosphorous in our bones is the radioactive variety.

Some readers might be more radioactive than others. That's because small radioactive needles or inserts are sometimes inserted into cancerous tumors to kill or suppress them.

But it's unlikely any of today's readers are as radioactive as the mysterious box that Celesta Damerall found in a deceased relative's house.

The box was about the size of a small paperback book. The cover was marked in large letters, "RACO." In smaller print were the words "Radiumized Applicator Company."

Ms. Damerall works for pharmacist Doug Parker at Parker's City Pharmacy on East Court Street in Seguin, Texas. The word "Radiumized" immediately caught Mr. Parker's attention when Ms. Damerall showed him the mysterious box several weeks ago.

Mr. Parker and Ms. Damerall both suspected that the substance in the box was radium, which is radioactive.

It seems that many years ago a relative of Ms. Damerall had cancer. A physician had prescribed applying radium to the affected region.

When Mr. Parker called me about the mysterious RACO box, he asked if I had a Geiger counter that could check the material. I happen to have a Geiger counter, so we arranged to meet.

When I arrived, the mystery box was produced, and I placed the Geiger counter next to it. Suddenly the Geiger counter emitted a rash of clicks!

The clicks did not lessen in intensity when we placed a thin steel plate between the RACO box and the Geiger counter. This proved that the emissions included powerful gamma rays.

The Geiger counter indicated that the RACO box was emitting a few hundred times the natural background radioactivity to which we are exposed by cosmic rays from space and from radioactive materials in the soil and in building materials.

It takes many thousands of times more radiation than that to kill a person. Nevertheless, it's a good idea to keep radioactive materials out of the hands of mischief makers and terrorists. So I offered to contact the Federal government about the RACO radium.

That was a mistake! I can barely get through airport security with all my electronics. And I have had countless battles with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) over a wide range of bureaucratic blunders during my service on two government air quality committees.

Past experience wasn't on my mind when I looked up Homeland Security on the web and called their toll-free telephone number.

There then began a bizarre game of telephone tag highlighted by one bureaucrat who essentially hung up the phone and another who denied I had called in the first place!

Eventually, someone at the EPA who had experience in such matters called, and said he would take care of the problem. The EPA needs more people like this.

Two weeks later, Celesta Damerall called to say that the radioactive material would be picked up at 9:00 AM on a Saturday morning.

I envisioned men wearing bright orange space suits emerging from an armored vehicle carrying a big lead cask to transport the radioactive material. They would be escorted by a detachment of heavily armed soldiers carrying M-16s and wearing flak jackets. So I arrived at the appointed place at 9:00 AM with a digital camera.

The armored convoy hadn't arrived by 11:15 AM. Just as I prepared to leave, Ruben Cortez, a radiation safety officer at the Texas Department of State Health Services, arrived with a large Geiger counter and saved the day.

The armored vehicle was cleverly disguised as his family car, complete with wife and kids. Instead of the protective suit I had imagined, Mr. Cortez wore a shirt marked with the logo of the Health Physics Society and a security badge. Instead of a lead cask for safeguarding the sample, he carried an empty steel ammunition box. The detachment of armed guards was nowhere to be seen, so I assumed they were hiding in the landscaping outside.

Mr. Cortez knew exactly what to do. He checked out the sample with his Geiger counter and got the same results I did, even after the sample was placed in the steel ammo box. He then filled out various forms and papers that he and Mr. Parker signed.

All's well that ends well, and Mr. Cortez has properly disposed of Seguin's stockpile of nuclear material. I only wish he could do the same with a few of the anonymous bureaucrats I called before finding one who knew what to do.

It's now perfectly safe to patronize Parker's City Pharmacy, the seventh oldest pharmacy in Texas. The RACO box is where it belongs, and Celesta Damerall, Doug Parker and I no longer glow in the dark.

Forrest M. Mims III and his science are featured online at www.forrestmims.org.

This feature was originally published in Forrest Mims's weekly science column in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, Seguin, Texas. The column is written for a general audience.