The discovery happened on July 24<\/a>, when a DPS corporal assigned to the agency’s Radiological\/Nuclear Threat Detection Unit was driving near South County Road 1210. While on patrol, the vehicle’s radiation detection system alerted the trooper to elevated radiation levels in the area.<\/p>\nUsing additional handheld equipment, the corporal searched the area and traced the radiation to a location beneath the ground. After confirming the source, DPS assembled a team of local, state and federal agencies to safely recover it.<\/p>\n
Recovery efforts began the following day, with crews from the FBI, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Midland Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Team, Midland Emergency Management, the Midland Health Department and Chevron security working alongside DPS.<\/p>\n
Before excavation began, crews established safety zones and continuously monitored radiation levels while developing a plan to safely remove the object.<\/p>\n
Investigators eventually uncovered the source about 6 to 8 inches below the surface.<\/p>\n
Officials identified it as a 100-millicurie sealed Cesium-137 radioactive source manufactured in April 1967. Cesium-137 is a radioactive material commonly used in industrial gauges, medical equipment and research applications.<\/p>\n
The source was recovered without incident, and DPS said no one was injured or exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during the operation. Officials also stressed there was never a threat to the public.<\/p>\n
DPS has not said how the decades-old radioactive source ended up buried in Midland County or whether investigators have determined who was responsible for leaving it there. The agency also has not released additional details about where the source may have originated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIDLAND COUNTY, Texas – A routine patrol in West Texas led to a surprising discovery after a Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-393621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}