UNDTE April 18, 2012 - Daily Helmsman - Radioactive device found on campus - University of Memphis officials recently discovered a radioactive device inside of a Dumpster on campus. The device was discovered on April 5 and its radioactive nature was confirmed on April 9. A radioactive device was extracted from a scrap metal Dumpster in an alley between the Heating and Cooling Plant and the Meeman Journalism Building on April 12. Sharon Whitaker, who works inside Meeman, said she was alarmed when she looked out her window and saw men in HAZMAT suits inside the Dumpster. "I just kept thinking in my mind, ‘Something is not right,’" she said. "Whenever you put on a HAZMAT suit, it’s got to be something that has to do with your health." The radioactivity in the Dumpster was first detected on April 5 by monitors at Sims Metal Management, where a truck took the bin to dispose of the waste. The metal processing company routinely scans the contents of bins brought there to check for radioactive substances before admitting their contents into its facilities. Monitors initially detected radiation levels that were 35 percent above normal background radiation, also known as naturally-occurring radiation, in the bin brought from The University of Memphis. The truck carrying the Dumpster was scanned two additional times, producing slightly lower percentage results before the Dumpster was returned to its original location on campus that afternoon.
April 18, 2012 - Augusta Chronicle - Savannah River Site cancer compensation briefing draws hopeful crowd - Former Savannah River Site workers and their survivors attended a meeting Tuesday on new compensation opportunities for cancers linked to jobs at the site. The new category will make about 800 rejected claims eligible for reconsideration. The program has already paid out $502 million to more than 3,800 SRS workers diagnosed with one or more of 22 cancers related to radiation exposure, said Rachel Leiton, the director of the U.S. Labor Department’s Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation. However, a new category for former SRS workers employed for at least 250 days between Jan. 1, 1953, and Sept. 30, 1972, will make about 800 previously rejected claims eligible for reconsideration for lump-sum payments of $150,000 or benefit combinations worth even more.
April 18, 2012 - Big Pond News - Radioactive fears on Pacific Highway - Workers upgrading the Pacific Highway near Port Macquarie vomit after unearthing suspected radioactive waste, says the project manager. The upgrade's project manager, Bob Higgins, said the workers became sick after unearthing a strange clay-like material near Port Macquarie. 'As we've taken down the cutting there we exposed the face of the existing material (and) came across a clay material that when it's exposed to air it gets an orange streak through it,' he told ABC Radio. 'There were a number of workers that felt a little bit of nausea and there was a bit of vomiting when they were in close proximity.' A truck carrying radioactive waste from Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor was involved in a crash on that stretch of highway in 1980. The truck was taking radioactive isotopes to Brisbane so the waste could be shipped to the United Stares. It was subsequently buried near the crash site.