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USDOT Misadventure

In the Fall of 1998, a logger in Illinois (one of our fine customers) received a surprise visit from DOT inspectors, one of whom was from Texas.  The inspectors informed the logger that he must have copies of current IAEA Certificates of Competent Authority documents for all sealed sources he transported (I suspect many loggers have never even seen an IAEA Certificate).  Bizarrely, they further informed him that no such current Certificate existed for the Gulf Nuclear 71-1 sources he possessed, and that he could no longer legally transport same.

In fact, the fifth revision of the IAEA Certificate of Competent Authority was issued for the 71-1 on May 29, 1998, and was good through May 31, 2003 (it has since been reissued).  The IAEA Certificates of Competent Authority may be available from The US Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration, but good luck in getting anything from them in less than six months, or anything at all depending on security policy at any given time.

Certificates were also previously available online from the NRC Sealed Source and Device Registry, but it has been "indefinitely shut down pending a security review" since shortly after the events of September 11, 2001.  Access is available only to government agencies, and the regulated community is supposed to ask their state regulators for copies of Certificates of Competent Authority if they need same.  Good luck.  Fortunately, due to typical insane government logic, the very same DOT / IAEA Certificates of Competent Authority are available at the RAMPAC website on the Certificate Retrieval PageAnaLog Services, Inc. has current copies of the IAEA Certificate of Competent Authority documents for many of the common sealed logging sources; if you have problems obtaining certificates from the above link, we may be able to help.


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Last 10-20-10