Has Anyone Seen My Nuclear Material?

From the AP:
Radioactive material lost about four months ago by Texas-based Halliburton Energy Services surfaced Thursday in Boston after federal homeland security and enforcement authorities launched a massive search. According to a report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday by Halliburton, the material was being shipped to Texas, when it was apparently misdirected in Newark, N.J., and ended up at the Forward Freight facilities in Boston. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Halliburton did not notify the NRC until Tuesday that the material, which is used in oil well exploration, had gone missing last October. Sheehan said the company did not adhere to notification requirements, and the incident is still under investigation. "The focus through today was on trying to find the material," said Sheehan. "We're going to be pressing them as to why the notification was not more timely." Homeland Security Department officials as well as the FBI launched a search for the materials after learning they were missing. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a frequent critic of the NRC, said the incident highlights inadequate security measures that cover nuclear materials. According to the report, two radioactive sources of the element Americium were imported from Russia by Halliburton Energy Services. The shipment went through Amsterdam to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on Oct. 9, and then disappeared until Wednesday when it turned up in Boston. Halliburton did not immediately comment on the report Thursday. The NRC report indicates the material was trucked to Massachusetts after a Boston label was inadvertently placed on the package at Forward Freight's Newark facility. The materials are classified as having the potential to permanently injure a person who fails to handle them properly, Markey said. Markey said the NRC still hasn't beefed up its rules to the point where dangerous materials are kept out of the hands of terrorists.