Help Is Asked in Locating Stolen Radioactive Device

Police and a Vallejo-based engineering company are seeking the public’s help in locating a potentially dangerous piece of radioactive testing equipment that was stolen from a company truck a week ago.

“We’re very anxious to locate this,” Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Haacker said Wednesday. “If a child found it, it could be dangerous.”

The device, which weighs about 75 pounds and is valued at $4,000, is used to test the density of soil and asphalt, according to Bob Long, spokesman for Pavement Engineering, which owns it.

The company is offering a $500 reward for its return, he said.

Known as a nuclear gauge, the device was stolen Nov. 7 when company executive Bob Fredericks spent the night in Santa Ana on a business trip, Long said. Fredericks checked into a Santa Ana hotel and when he came out in the morning, he discovered that the equipment, housed in a bright orange box, was missing from his car.

Long said the locked box was clearly marked radioactive, adding that that whoever took it may have panicked and thrown it away.

Long said that a fragment of radioactive material is embedded in the nuclear gauge’s probe. The probe is inserted into the ground and measures the compaction of soil or asphalt.

Engineers who use the equipment are required to wear badges that change color if they are exposed to radiation.

Sustained exposure to the probe when it is fully extended could result in low-level radiation poisoning to anyone who is not wearing protective clothing, Long said.

He also warned that if the equipment is damaged, serious health problems could occur.

“The bottom line is if somebody breaks the tube (probe) and puts (the radioactive material) in their pocket, then I don’t know what would happen,” Long said.

Anyone with information about the device or who may have seen it is requested to call the Police Department at (714) 647-6995.

“Do not tamper with it in any way,” Haacker warned.