ABSTRACT
Presently, one of the gravest anticipated terrorist threats to the US and the UK involves a class of weapons known as radiation dispersal devices or RDDs (dirty bombs). Dirty bombs use a conventional bomb, such as a car bomb, to disperse radioactive materials in a populated area to cause great economic and social disruption disproportionate to their actual radiological effects and well beyond the physical destruction from their conventional bomb components. A program is underway to reduce the threat of a serious dirty bomb attack within the United States to near-zero by 2010. The severity of the long-term threat of dirty bombs to our national security will depend upon finding alternative matrices for the radioactive sources best suited for use in dirty bombs, e.g., the ¹³⁷CsCl powder that is the standard material used in industrial irradiators and the rapidly-growing sterilization industry and that has the greatest dispersibility, the most penetrating radiation, and the highest levels of radioactivity per mass of material. All other types of RDD pale in comparison to the ¹³⁷Cs-bomb. Our research has shown that a combination of a simple, inexpensive technical step in the production of ¹³⁷CsCl for use in the sterilization industry, plus focused legislation and international treaties, can almost completely remove the threat of a devastating ¹³⁷Cs dirty bomb. In addition, first responders must learn to deal with the aftermath should one be successfully detonated. New guidelines from the DHS on exposure levels for police, fire, and EMTs address total dose, e.g., 5 rem, but do not provide guidance on how to implement emergency response activities after a radiological event. We have implemented a first-responder training program at NMSU that is targeted to dirty bombs. Our experience with first-responder training along the WIPP transportation corridor is ideally suited as a basis since a dirty bomb is more similar to a radwaste spill than any other type of event. Finally, we have devised the only reasonable, and executable, rapid response to an RDD attack that is presently available to all metropolitan areas.