anybody ever have steel loads swept by a Geiger counter...???

**junkaholic** · 04-20-2016, 03:46 PM

believe it or not I went to a scrap yard in Longveiw Texas the yard guy came out with a hand held Geiger counter turned it on and it started beeping he adjusted on it for a while it kept on beeping he gave it to another employee who kept on adjusting it and kept checking the load it kept beeping he took the counter back to the office and came back out told us to go unload the scrap we collected our money and left they are no longer in business TRUE STORY

**armygreywolf** · 04-23-2016, 02:59 AM

Things I know set off detectors at yards FOR SURE...anything with tritium. Old glow in the dark clocks, the old flip style clocks, old watches...water, gas and oil drill heads. Sometimes and it depends on where you live...but I know of well water pumps that have set the detectors off, makes you think about what your drinking doesn't it? Just remember radioactive elements occur naturally.

Radiation is a EXTREMELY serious thing. It's half life does not mitigate the additive aspects of smelting. It's part of the reason almost zero coal based smelting operations exist anywhere in the world. Heck where I live in Wisconsin RADON is a pretty big issue, our landlord has a radon detector in the basement (where I sleep).

**DakotaRog** · 04-23-2016, 11:21 AM

sdakscrapper and others- Yeah, now that I've learned what the yellow posts are entering a steel yard, I've been through such detectors. Just never knew what they were.

armygreywold- Radon is a fairly big issue here as well. I can't remember why we didn't put in a mitigation unit when we built our house in 2008 but the wifey told me recently that the general talked us out of it. Now she wants the basement tested.

If the detectors at the yards are as sensitive as some at nuclear power plants, they can go off at extremely low trace amounts. I think JohnC4x4 said something to that effect. I'll post some later from a guy from over on one of my trapping forums from a guy who claims he also works in the nuclear industry. He gave examples of what can set off their detectors.

**DakotaRog** · 04-23-2016, 11:35 AM

This is from a guy named "BuckNE" over on the trapperman forum. He claims he re-fuels nuclear reactors. Its the internet, take it as you wish...

4-17-2016
we as a society are collectively stupid. And, yes, the emission standards and allowable release limits at a nuclear plant are so low that if I took a handful of that fly ash that the coal plants dump on the ground into a nuclear plant, I would never be able to get it out because it wouldn't meet the free release standards. But its ok for a coal plant to dump it on the ground and let it wash into a river. Heck, they even put it on roads.

I've got a platter in my kitchen that I once took into a nuclear plant for Thanksgiving dinner that it took me 4 months to get out because the ceramic itself is radioactive enough to alarm the small article monitors. And forget about the smoke detector in your kitchen. It is radioactive enough that it would never be free released from a nuclear plant.

4-17-2016
We had a problem at one nuclear plant I worked at where everyone's shoes kept setting off the personnel contamination monitors. People were losing shoes all over the place because they couldn't get them out of the plant. They couldn't figure out where the contamination was coming from.

Turned out the ice melt they were using on the sidewalks had enough potassium chloride in it that it was setting off the contamination monitors.

Think about that the next time you spread it on your front steps. It is radioactive enough that it will set off a contamination monitor at a nuclear plant.

This is just to illustrate just how low the threshold for release is for nuclear plants.

Another guy named "Fairchild #17" who identifies himself from somewhere in PA chimed in. He also says he works in a nuclear power plant.
4-18-2016
Buck, as you know, we often can't get out of the PCMs because of simple static electricity or radon.
The solution is to stand in front of a fan for a minute or two and the contamination levels decrease enough to get out.

Anyway, some opinions from people who claim they work in the nuclear industry

**armygreywolf** · 04-23-2016, 02:35 PM

Radon is a heavy noble gas...mitigation is almost as easy as a powered floor vent. I know we had to excavate an entire basement once not because of moisture but because we cored the soil and discovered high emissives, radium most likely. So the basement was sealed all the way around to keep radon gas out. Radon here is especially concentrated in the kettle moraine area. The scariest portion of that is the previous owners both mother and STEP daughter had breast cancer.

Side note: Radiation levels in certain parts of "Cave of the Mounds" limestone cave is high enough that tour guides are rotated frequently so no one tour guide spends especially significant amounts of time in the cave. I have (as it still have it)a pocket dosimeter (pager sized) when I spent some time working with EOD and traveling site to site doing stuff...and things...in the military. I received a three year background dose in less than an hour at a particular site in a particular place with EXPOSED cake. Even our vehicles were dosed more than a 100 meters away. Which is why I tell people that sure it might be harmless at your recycling center persay but smelting is an additive process, things can and do come out as new metal even more radioactive than they went in, that's why such low background levels are not allowed anymore.