WASHINGTON — Two nuclear security experts for the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory lost samples of plutonium and cesium, materials that can be used in nuclear and radioactive bombs, after their rental car was broken into in March 2017.
The agents — in possession of radiation detectors and small amounts of the radioactive materials needed to calibrate the devices — traveled from the national lab to San Antonio, Texas, in order to secure additional nuclear materials from a nonprofit research lab to be returned to Idaho.
As first reported by the San Antonio Express, the DoE agents made a critical error, stopping at a Marriott hotel located in a high-crime neighborhood for the night. Rather than take the nuclear equipment with them, the agents left the sensors and small samples unconcealed on the back seat of their rented Ford Expedition. In the morning, the back window of the vehicle had been broken and the sensitive material stolen.
San Antonio police were shocked the experts handled the material and technology so carelessly. The agents “should have never left a sensitive instrument like this unattended in a vehicle,” said Carlos Ortiz, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department.
Ortiz said the department closed an investigation of the robbery because one of the Idaho National Laborartory specialists informed them “that it wasn’t an important or dangerous amount” of plutonium. The spokeswoman for the national lab, Sarah Neumann, explained that, although the lab took the case very seriously, “[t]here is little or no danger from these sources being in the public domain.” Over a year since the theft, neither the plutonium nor cesium has been recovered.
While it’s shocking that the material was handled so carelessly, the loss of nuclear material is nothing new for the United States. According to a 2015 government watchdog report cited by the San Antonio Express, the Department of Enegery had never produced a comphrehensive inventory of the location and quanity of the U.S.'s plutonium loaned to other nations and 11 foreign sites with U.S-produced highly enriched uranium, suitable for use in a weapon, had not been visited by U.S. inspectors in over 20 years.
During the rapid production of nuclear material during the Cold War, approximately 6 tons of nuclear material was declared unaccounted for by the U.S. government. However, most of this material is thought to have been trapped in factory pipes, filters and machines, or improperly tracked in paperwork.
Daniel Cebul is an editorial fellow and general assignments writer for Defense News, C4ISRNET, Fifth Domain and Federal Times.
