I too doubt that what Judy has is dangerous unless she starts eating it;
however, a lot depends on what is in the bag and how old it is. I know that
when uranium was used to color glass, the glassware was radioactive enough
to be detected by a GM counter. There was a time when little was known
about the effects of radiation. If it were me I would still have it tested.
BTW, it is not possible to remove all the radioactive material from uranium
compounds since (1) uranium itself is radioactive and (2) it decays into
other radioactive isotope which are in turn radioactive and decay into
other radioactive isotopes etc etc (like radium, radon, lead, bismuth etc)
These daughter isotopes could be removed but is suspect it would be expensive.
Glass does a pretty good job of stopping the alpha particles which are
released in the decay of uranium, but would have little effect on the
subsequent gamma rays and most simple counters are not effecient when it
comes to gamma rays. You are right, the greatest danger is in ingestion.
Judy did not tell us how big a bag she has (1000 lb?) or if it is really
a bag (paper?) or how old it is. I've seen some pretty funny things turn
up in strange locations. In Wheeling, W. Va.( 13 miles from here) it was
discovered that a woman was keeping 10 mg of Radium in her home (thats a
LOT). It had belonged to her husband who was a dematologist and had told
her it was valuable. After he died (of cancer) she cleaned out his office.
The Radium was kept in a bookcase behind his desk in an unshielded wood
box. She found it and took the valuable stuff home and put it in her
bedside table. After about 5 years, she started reading stories about
radiation in the newspaper and got worried. I was the radiation safety
officer at my College at the time and was asked to check out her home.
Boy did I get a surprise when I walked in the front door and switched
on my survey meter. Bottom line- since radiation from radioactive isotopes
is undetectable by human senses, if you suspect there is some around,
you had better check it out.
Bob Schramm