"It's not every day that you meet someone that says I'm into heavy metal," joked Melinda Mulcare. She works at S & S Metals, a family-owned scrap metal yard.
Keeping the business going, means keeping some metals from ever getting in, especially those that are radioactive.
Mulcare uses a device that detects radiation over metal. Here in Oklahoma, old oil pipes can became radioactive. If radioactive material ends up at S & S Metals, it can't send the pipes onto the steel mill for processing because it will be rejected.
If radioactive material does end up at the scrap metal yard, Mulcare runs into another problem, finding a place to put it.
In fact, a 2NEWS investigation found the closest place to take radioactive material is Andrews, Texas, that's more than 500 miles away.
There's also a place in Utah and Tennessee.
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality says it will help dispose of nuclear waste, but admits since the government doesn't track radioactive material, it doesn't always know where it ends up.
"Occasionally sources get lost," said Mike Broderick with DEQ.
The DEQ says the feds have improved tracking since 9-11 and are looking at improving it more, but DEQ admits, the recent improvements have overwhelmed the system.
"It may be a good idea to extend it further, but we need to think about what we're doing and evaluate how what we've got works first," said Broderick.
The DEQ says if radioactive material makes it to a scrap metal yard, its often discovered before it's sent off to the steel mill. If it's not, it can cost scrap metal yards big.
"If a piece of radiation gets in that load, the mill will reject that whole load. It costs me to ship it. It costs me when they reject it, and they bring it back. It costs me to unload it, to find that piece and then to load it back and ship it again," said Mulcare, whose company takes the shipments to Dallas.
DEQ says while a majority of the material is caught before it ever reaches a steel mill, there have been times where it's been processed.
"Accidentally melted down in a steel mill and then it can be conceivably incorporated into the product," said Broderick.
As part of a nationwide investigation our partner, Scripps Howard News Service, found one case where radioactive material was discovered in 1,000 La-Z-Boy recliners.
The discovery happened before the chairs were shipped out.
Still DEQ says some items that show up as radioactive aren't always dangerous.
He showed us an example using Potassium Chloride, a salt substitute.
When Broderick put the radiation detector over the salt substitute it registered as radioactive.
"Compared to the background radiation, (it's) quite radioactive. Yet, this stuff is safe to eat," he said.
Whether it's deemed safe or not, Melinda says the detectors don't discriminate, making their job to catch the material that much more crucial.
"We've had that happen. The littlest piece of radiation can get in there, and we have to try to dig it out of that big huge railcar," said Mulcare.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a log of some of the situations where radioactive material have been found. We have a link to it above. Also, if you'd like to read more on the Scripps Howard News Service's radioactive material investigation just go to
www.shns.com.
