In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, little-noticed radioactive nuggets which are used for everything from examining welds to providing medical therapies were suddenly the rage. The rage, that is, to account for, gather up, and secure. Sources like Strontium-90, Cobalt-60, Iridium-192 and Americium-241 all became household words – or the closest one can get to such – when it was discovered that these items were often poorly accounted for and even less well-protected. An evil-doer could simply stroll into a hospital, dislodge a radioactive source from a therapy machine, wrap it up in explosives, and detonate it, freaking out just about everyone in the continental United States and rendering an area the size of Wall Street or Times Square off-limits for the foreseeable future. Accidental and often very unpleasant exposures to these items were not new: what was new was the very public acknowledgement that a terrorist could also come upon these sources quite easily and use them to deliberately harm people.
At the time, experts and so-called experts were quick to note that these Radiological Dispersion Devices (RDDs) were in no way comparable to the death and destruction that could be leveled by a nuclear weapon. Should a terrorist get hold of the latter, it would be far, far more unpleasant. The impact on people would most likely be greatest from the blast itself and not the radioactive contamination that would follow an RDD, or “dirty bomb” attack.
Still others, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) noted that, while they weren’t nuclear weapons, RDDs could be quite messy to clean up and could induce significant psychological impacts on those who don’t really know the difference. The “worry well” at hospitals, littered with those who believe they were contaminated, would stretch triage to its limits. So, the NRC, the IAEA and NNSA took great pains to educate folks on what an RDD was, and what it wasn’t. In addition, not all radiological sources are created equal. Some have far longer half-lives than others and so need to be more strongly controlled. Given the number and dispersion (pun intended) of these widely used sources, a categorization was created so help countries prioritize what should be locked down more urgently. The IAEA produced a categorization of sources which was meant to help countries do this.
Since 9/11, the issue of RDDs has waxed and waned in the public consciousness while NRC, NNSA and others have worked to collect these nasty little buggers and lock them down for good, both domestically and around the world. The threat certainly isn’t gone and Al Qaeda has not made a secret of the fact that they, and their followers, would love to take one of these RDDs out for a test drive on U.S. soil.
As we approach the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Jon Medalia, a longtime nuke analyst with the Congressional Research Service has released a very nice compendium and update of things RDD. The report has found its way into the hands of the Federation of American Scientists so non-Hill types can access it too. It is worth reading.
