Halliburton misplaces mystery radioactive device: 'Do not handle'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Somewhere in West Texas is a 7-inch radioactive cylinder that Halliburton would like to find. Anyone who comes across it is advised to keep their distance.

The oil field services company lost track of the device, which is used to assess potential sites for hydraulic fracturing, last Tuesday while trying to transport it from Pecos to a well site near Odessa 130 miles away. A special unit of the Texas National Guard has now stepped in to aid Halliburton in a search for the cylinder, according to Bloomberg.

"It's not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form," said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. "But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49045210/

Makes one feel a whole lot better about fracking.

[a geek named Bob]

1. You know...

This has all the makings of those old 70's "barren wasteland" movies.

ANOTHER reason not to visit Texas.

[Downwinder]

2. A twenty five foot radius is not going to take up much of Texas.

[MineralMan]

3. Radioactivity is used for many industrial purposes.

Many legitimate industrial purposes. I'm not sure what this device is, but it isn't something that's going to lay waste to large tracts of land or anything of the sort. It will be well marked with radioactivity symbols. If you run across something so marked, notify someone about it. Other than that, it's not going to harm you, unless you foolishly pick it up and put it under your pillow or something.

From another source:

Oil-field service firms lower the radioactive units into wells to let workers identify places to break apart rock for the fracking process, which frees trapped oil and natural gas. While the loss of such a probe occurs from time to time, it has been years since a device with americium-241/beryllium, the material in Halliburton's device, was misplaced in Texas, Mr. Van Deusen said.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/radioactive-device-for-fracking-is-lost-653295/#ixzz26aVgx8qh

[justgamma]

4. Haliburton, who'da thunk it.

Electrocuted soldiers taking showers in Iraq, Gulf oil spill, lost radioactive cylinder. Are these guys totally incompetent or what?

[xfundy]

5. It's Rove's dildo.

Best for anyone to stay MILES away from it and its container.

[MadHound]

6. More loose radiation running around,

Not the first time something like this has happened, not the last either.

[begin_within]

7. What if it is never found?