SUNNYVALE — The four-man government disposal team arrived Monday from Los Alamos, N.M., to take away the small canister of plutonium. Weighing just 1.3 grams, the plutonium-238 isotope had been owned by a Silicon Valley company for nearly 30 years and was stored safely in a 10-foot hole in the ground.
But in the wrong hands, federal officials say, the highly radioactive isotope could pose a serious threat to public safety and conceivably provide terrorists with material for a dirty bomb.
The crew from the little-known National Nuclear Security Administration pulled the plutonium up by a rope, examined it to identify its origin and placed it into a specially lined barrel. The operation took only a few minutes, but federal officials were satisfied that they had eliminated a threat to national safety.
"This is a large PU-238 source," said Julia Whitworth, a senior project leader who oversaw the Sunnyvale operation. "We are fulfilling the threat reduction mission to remove material that could cause national security or public safety concerns."
Radioactive materials are used widely in hospitals, oil fields, manufacturing and research centers across the United States. One of the agency's responsibilities is to recover abandoned or unused isotopes from these facilities.
The isotope removed Monday is less dangerous than plutonium-239, which can be used in nuclear bombs, and emits a less potent radiation that can easily be shielded. But it is highly hazardous if inhaled or ingested.
Normally publicity-shy, the agency invited a Times reporter and photographer to witness the plutonium recovery. It was the first time any media had been allowed to witness a U.S. operation, the agency said.
The agency works in more than 130 countries to recover nuclear materials. It has collected more than 20,600 dangerous sources of radiation in the United States since the program began 12 years ago.
But the agency is barely able to stay even. Between 2,500 and 3,000 radiological sources are registered each year as unwanted. Last year, the agency's teams recovered 3,153, the largest number yet.
It has a backlog of 8,800 known items. Some officials estimate that there may be tens of thousands of other radioactive sources that the agency has not identified.
