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Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Says Nukes Ill-prepared for Terror Attack



Well, Radsafers, If the NY Times says it, it must be true. ;-)
norm
"http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/17/national/17SECU.html?ex=1009256400&en=



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ttp://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/17/national/17SECU.html?ex=1009256400&en=8e9aa4e



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December 17, 2001



DOMESTIC SECURITY 

 

Nuclear Sites Ill-Prepared for Attacks, Group Says



By MATTHEW L. WALD



WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 The security drills created by the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission to ensure that reactor security guards can repel terrorists 

involve mock attacks by only three intruders, assisted by one confederate 

inside the plant, according to a nuclear safety group. 



Even against such limited challenges, crews at nearly half the reactors have 

scored poorly on the drills, according to documents assembled by the group, 

the Committee to Bridge the Gap, based in California.



In an article in the January issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

http://www.thebulletin , Daniel Hirsch, the president of Bridge the Gap, contends 

that the drills are unrealistic, especially in light of the terrorist attacks 

of Sept. 11, which involved 19 hijackers operating in four well-coordinated 

teams.



"The N.R.C. and the industry seem to be stuck in a time warp of a quarter of 

a century ago, and are simply hoping that the problem goes away," Mr. Hirsch 

said. He called for upgrading the level of assumed threat that is the basis 

for designing protections of nuclear power plants.



Federal regulations call for plants to be prepared to deal with "a determined 

violent external assault, attack by stealth or deceptive actions of several 

persons." The attackers are to be assumed to have light weapons, a 

four-wheel-drive vehicle and help from a knowledgeable accomplice in the 

plant.

 

But the regulations do not call for protections aganst attackers with 

aircraft or boats, even though many plants are on lakes, rivers or seashores 

or are in zones where flying is not tightly restricted.



The regulations require a minimum of five guards on duty at plants — enough 

to outnumber the attackers, by their calculations. The Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission's documents call this a matter of "conservatism," and the agency 

has said that the threat of a larger attack is "not credible."



Commission officials have said that the meaning of "several" attackers in 

their regulations is secret, but a 1976 policy paper identifies it as three. 

The number was made public in a 1982 decision about licensing the Pacific Gas 

and Electric Company's Diablo Canyon reactors.



At the regulatory commission, William M. Beecher, the director of public 

affairs, said he could not confirm that the number was three. "We cannot 

discuss safeguards information," Mr. Beecher said. "Regardless of what's in 

the public record, I can't break security."



In 1977, the regulatory commission found that "on the basis of intelligence 

and other relevant information available to the N.R.C., there are no known 

groups in this country having the combination of motivation, skill and 

resources to attack either a fuel facility or a nuclear power reactor." At 

the time, the agency said it would review the issue in the future.



Mr. Hirsch said the current regulations were obsolete long before Sept. 11. 

He cited an attack planned by the radical environmental group Earth First in 

1986 against the three- reactor Palo Verde nuclear complex, in Arizona. The 

group tried to cut power lines leading to the plant. Had it succeeded, 

instruments controlling the reactors could have lost power.



Mr. Hirsch's group has tried repeatedly to get the commission to toughen its 

security standards. The agency did tighten its rule setting safeguards 

against truck bombs in 1993. That was a reaction to the terrorist bombing of 

the World Trade Center's parking garage and an incident in which a former 

mental patient sped past the guard shack at the Three Mile Island reactor in 

Pennsylvania and crashed his station wagon into the plant.



Mr. Hirsch said the commission had taken its action extremely late, ignoring 

a previous series of huge truck bomb attacks abroad.



But Mr. Beecher said that the commission was conducting a "top to bottom 

review" of security and that many states had called out state troopers or the 

National Guard to help secure the reactors. 

Coalition for Peace and Justice and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave., Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8537 or 609-601-8583 (8583: fax, answer machine);  ncohen12@home.com  UNPLUG SALEM WEBSITE:  http://www.unplugsalem.org/  COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE WEBSITE:  http:/www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org   The Coalition for Peace and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action.
"First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?"  (Mary Chapin Carpenter)