10 years and 20,000 sources: the GTRI offsite source recovery project

Full text: The Global Threat Reduction Initiative's (GTRI) Offsite Source Recovery Project (OSRP) has been recovering excess and unwanted radioactive sealed sources for ten years. In January 2009, GTRI announced that the project had recovered 20,000 sealed radioactive sources. This project grew out of early efforts at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to recover and disposition excess Plutonium-239 (239Pu) sealed sources that were distributed in the 1960s and 1970s under the Atoms for Peace Program. Decades later, these sources began to exceed their design life or fall out of regular use. Sealed source recovery was initially considered a waste management activity, but after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the interagency community began to recognize the threat posed by excess and unwanted radiological materials, particularly those that could not be disposed at the end of their useful life. After being transferred to the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to be part of GTRI, OSRP's mission was expanded to include not only material that would be classified as Greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) when it became waste, but also any other materials that might constitute a 'national security consideration'. This paper discusses OSRP's history, recovery operations, expansion to accept high-activity beta-gamma-emitting sealed sources and devices and foreign-possessed sources, and more recent efforts such as involvement in GTRI's Search and Secure project. Current challenges and future work will also be discussed