A new hand-held radiation detector demonstrated Sunday will help the city respond to any flotsam contaminated by the leak at the Japanese nuclear plant in the wake of last year’s earthquake and tsunami.
Experts say the tsunami debris is unlikely to be radioactive, but the city acquired the $15,000 device as a precaution.
"The main event of the tsunami brought all of the debris out a couple of days before the reactor actually melted, so most of the debris entered the ocean before there was any radioactive material (released)," said Cortney Chambers, a medical analyst with the Department of Emergency Services. "But out of an abundance of caution, we just want to make sure that we’re prepared."
The detector, known as a Smiths Detection RadSeeker, arrived in Honolulu on Friday — the same day officials confirmed that a plastic container found floating off Windward Oahu between the Makai Research Pier and Rabbit Island on Wednesday was tsunami debris.
The blue seafood bin, scanned with another device by state Department of Health technicians, was found to have only normal background radiation.
The detector is different from earlier equipment owned by the city and state because it can sense which particular radioactive isotope is active in the object, said Chambers. Other equipment, he said, detects only the presence and level of radiation.
"Is it cesium-137, americium, any of the radioactive isotopes that may be out there?" Chambers said during a news conference Sunday at Makai Pier. Some isotopes may be specific to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, he said.
Chambers held up a household smoke detector near to the device, which beeped after about a minute to alert him that the object contained americium-241.
Because the device detects specific isotopes, Chambers said, it can help officials better devise plans of action when radioactive material is discovered.
"Say if you had a package that was placed somewhere that you thought may be radioactive," he said. "If it was cesium-137, many intelligence analysts in the military have said that that may be something that a terrorist might use for a dirty bomb; or if it was thallium it may be health-related radiation."
Chambers said the department used an identical detector on loan during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in November and was able to purchase its own with a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is the only RadSeeker in the state, though other agencies such as the Hawaii National Guard have similar equipment.
A rad is a unit measuring a dose of absorbed radiation.
