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

Yesterday on an outdoor forum that I'm on, a nuclear power thread got started. There is a member of this forum that works in the nuclear industry so the main question was aimed at him. During the course of the discussion a guy who claims he's from ne OK posted this:

Several years back my dad hauled a load of metal to the scrap yard. Gal at the gate checked it over with a Geiger counter before allowing him in. Dad asked about it and she said it's been SOP for a while. She told dad she turned a farmer away one day. He brought in an old iron gate that had been in his pasture for years... buried the needle when she checked it.

Only thing I could ever figure was that the gate was made from drill stem that got juiced on its journey through the ground.

Not SOP at my steel yard. Anybody ever had a steel load swept with a Geiger counter...??? Just curious.

that would be a weird day now I have a question to ask at the yard this morning

My main yard has yellow metal posts which you have to drive thru as you go onto the vehicle scale.
Inside them is radioactivity detectors. I do think this is standard in many yards now, they are a big well known firm.

They will pick up microwave ovens.....

Yes, I've seen it. A car from the ND oil patch with Radioactive filter socks inside. Load rejected!

Radioactive dump site found in remote North Dakota town | Bakken News | bismarcktribune.com

We have the same yellow posts at our yard. I've only seen one load rejected, but it wasn't from the load itself. It was from the driver. I heard the scale lady talking to him and he had just gotten a full body x-ray a few hours prior. They confirmed that was why by having him walk through. Sure enough, he set the detector off. I couldn't believe they are that sensitive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

My main yard has yellow metal posts which you have to drive thru as you go onto the vehicle scale.
Inside them is radioactivity detectors. I do think this is standard in many yards now, they are a big well known firm.

They will pick up microwave ovens.....

---

Same deal at Canadian yards and the steel mill, hot loads are rejected.

I drove truck for about a minute and coil steel is what I hauled mostly. The mills had detectors at each entrance. Mike

Our yard has one (at least) overhead as your ready to get on the big scale.

Yup mine too- the yellow metal posts have sensors that pick up radioactivity. so don't try and scrap that nuke.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike1286

It was from the driver. I heard the scale lady talking to him and he had just gotten a full body x-ray a few hours prior. They confirmed that was why by having him walk through. Sure enough, he set the detector off.

---

Not possible
If you get an X-ray to do NOT become radioactive

Maybe he had a test where he had to drink a radioactive liquid / or had something injected into him
Like they do to me for a stress test
BUT Just getting an x-Ray does NOT leave any type of lingering radiation on the person

Radiation exposure occurs when a person is near a radiation source. Persons exposed to a radiation source do not become radioactive. For example, an x-ray machine is a source of radiation exposure. However, you do not become radioactive when you have an
x-ray taken.

Copied from >> NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman answers radiation questions - today > health - TODAY.com

I spent 8 years in the Navy as a Nuclear Electrician and the wife is currently (last 25 years ) an operator at a Nucler Power plant

This one is from the NRC >> Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and began operations on January 19, 1975

It is important to remember that being exposed to radiation does not make one radioactive,

Taken from NRC: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Radiation Protection

I know they do at TJN in Sioux Falls. They have the big yellow posts that are mentioned by others. I had a stress test to check my ticker last summer and the next day took a load down. I set off their radiation detector and the first thing the gal asked me was whether I had a stress test recently or not. She allowed me to sell my load and told me that I set it off again when I weighed out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JohnC4X4

Not possible
If you get an X-ray to do NOT become radioactive

Maybe he had a test where he had to drink a radioactive liquid / or had something injected into him
Like they do to me for a stress test
BUT Just getting an x-Ray does NOT leave any type of lingering radiation on the person

Radiation exposure occurs when a person is near a radiation source. Persons exposed to a radiation source do not become radioactive. For example, an x-ray machine is a source of radiation exposure. However, you do not become radioactive when you have an
x-ray taken.

Copied from >> NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman answers radiation questions - today > health - TODAY.com

I spent 8 years in the Navy as a Nuclear Electrician and the wife is currently (last 25 years ) an operator at a Nucler Power plant

---

Just sterile.

I did not know that. Thanks for the research and info. I only know what the guy told the scale lady. Maybe he had both done and only mentioned the xray. Maybe he was bs-ing to try and get his load through. Lol. Probably the former (radioactive dye etc for an mri or cat scan) seeing as HE set off the detector himself without the truck. Still crazy that he himself was radioactive enough to throw an alarm though.

I was waiting at the pay widow one day when a truck came across the scale and set the alarm off. It turns out that the passenger had some sort of radioactive implant for treating cancer that set it off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alloy2

Just sterile.

---

I have a feeling that age and a vasectomy have more to do with my sterility than X-rays.

Many of the yards down here do not have the yellow posts, but they do have hand held Geiger counters. Mainly it gets used if there is any pipe, as a lot of the pipe here used in the oil fields will become radioactive.

A massive shut down of PSC metals happened in Beaver Falls, PA. Somehow radioactive iron was missed by the sensors on the scale (or somehow by passed it). I do believe some of it was transferred before being discovered as radioactive to the Massillon, Ohio yard for PSC also.

All yards within 20 miles in my area have scanners.
One of them have large "posts" you drive your truck through.
http://s31.postimg.org/ubxmkuzyz/Scr...n_Detector.jpg

Environmental agencies identify PSC shredder as source of radioactive contamination - RT - Recycling Today

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

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).

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.

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

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.