Devices along highway are radiation detectors
Q: On U.S. 67 on the south and north ends of Princeton, Iowa, and farther north close to the Wapsipinicon River, there are some new devices along the highway. They are a stainless steel box with what looks like a solar panel on top. I have seen people in pickup trucks looking at them, but they didn’t appear to be Iowa Department of Transportation vehicles. Hope you can help.
— Sandra, Princeton, Iowa
A: We checked with the local Iowa Department of Transportation office and someone remembered a permit request from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. The boxes are radiation detectors. IEMA has placed radiation monitors around Illinois’ 11 reactors for about 20 years, said Kay Foster, of the Bureau of Nuclear Facility Safety. The monitors have been in Iowa for only the last five years. Princeton is nearly directly across the Mississippi River from the Exelon Nuclear Quad-Cities Generating Station. IEMA rings a nuclear generating plant with 16 monitors placed around a two-mile radius. The new detectors are more noticeable because they operate on solar power rather than commercial power.
Picture: This solar-powered radiation detector is located along U.S. 67 south of Princeton, Iowa, because of its proximity to Exelon Nuclear’s Quad-Cities Generating Station across the river near Cordova, Ill. (Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times)
