WAYNE CO., Ill. - Have you seen this container?
The Illinois Emergency Management Agency has been ensuring most media have the information about this radioactive container that was either lost or even possibly stolen from a well site in Wayne County. It's owned by Wayne County Well Surveys.
While we're sure there are plenty of you out there who know exactly what a device like this does in the process of oil well activity, many don't. So we've put in a call to IEMA in Springfield in order to talk to someone who can help us explain it to you. Published reports indicate that the item is part of a "larger tool used to assess geological formations in oil and gas, groundwater, mineral and geothermal exploration," but that doesn't explain much.
The search for this item - which went missing at some point in time last week, and which IEMA was notified of on Friday, October 16, so who knows how far it could have gotten by now - was at that time being focused on the following downstate Illinois counties of Clay, Cumberland, Edwards, Effingham, Franklin, Hamilton, Jasper, Jefferson, Macon, Marion, Moultrie, Richland, Shelby, Wabash, Wayne and White, and in Indiana, Gibson and Pike counties.
The item itself is not dangerous as long as the container isn't breached, as the radioactive material is housed inside it. Nevertheless, IEMA officials are asking that if anyone sees it, they don't approach it, but instead contact local law enforcement.