Opinionated response to "Restricted, controlled, & unrestricted area thread"

[mozley@darius.pet.upenn.edu (P. David Mozley, M.D.)]

We hope to remain a government of the people by the people for a long time.
It seems anti-American to silently acquiesce to injustices perpetrated by
the polity for the sake of expediency.  We can be "gentle", as you say,
about the way in which we chose to resist.  But, it seems that we have just
as much of an obligation to struggle against tyranny by the bureaucracy as
we did to resist our old King.

I wish a way to help you was clearer.  It is easy for me to suggest that
you martyr yourself for the rest of us.  I recognize that there are only a
limited number of times that a person can die for a good cause.  If you can
make a specific suggestion as to how we can help, such as forwarding you
our floor plans to compare with yours, then please let us know.

Best till then.

(Non-)disclaimer: If this is not the opinion of my employer, then it should
be.  Let the devil take them all if they don't like it.

>I was on vacation a week or so ago and just had a chance to catch up on
>the radsafe info over the past week.  The discussion about restricted
>and unrestricted areas was of particular interest because the NRC
>recently cited us for security problems in our research labs (we are a
>large, medical research center).
>
>One of the NRC inspectors visited between 40 and 50 of our labs during
>the inspection.  During those visits he was particularly interested in
>labs that were unlocked and unoccupied (he found 2).  He was also
>interested in how long he could wander around the lab before someone in
>the lab asked him why he was there.  This emphasis was obviously a
>result of the recent incidents at NIH and MIT.
>
>At the conclusion of the inspection, the NRC inspectors thought the
>security issues might be considered "areas of concern" and not citable
>violations.  A few weeks after the inspection, the lead inspector called
>me and told me that the security problems would be cited as a severity
>level IV violation.  The inspector alluded to the fact that this
>decision came from above - obviously, the NRC wants to make a point
>about security.
>
>When we received the violation notice, the violation was cited in a
>peculiar way.  We were cited for failure to secure licensed material in
>an "unrestricted" area (10 CFR 20.1801).  We thought we made it clear
>during the inspection that we consider all of our research labs
>"restricted" areas.  10 CFR 20 defines a restricted area as "an area,
>access to which is limited by the licensee for the purpose of protecting
>individuals against undue risks from exposure to radiation and
>radioactive materials."
>
>Given this, the question was why had the NRC cited us in the
>aforementioned fashion.  The answer was answered based upon discussions
>with the inspector.  It turns out that the term "limiting access" is
>somewhat subjective (i.e. posting an area is a method of limiting access
>just like a speed limit sign limits speed).  Oddly enough, there was
>nothing in our NRC license application committing us to lock up
>laboratories when they are unattended (that will probably change at our
>next license renewal!).  The bottom line is that the NRC really had no
>concrete way to cite this security issue as a violation aside from using
>the unrestricted area idea.
>
>Now for the quandry.  Do we challenge a severity level IV violation or
>simply shut up and say "OK, we'll tell everyone to lock their labs when
>they aren't there?"  Those few of you who know me very well probably can
>guess the answer to that question.  We "gently" challenged the wording
>of the violation.  We basically said we know what you want us to do, but
>the violation is cited incorrectly.
>
>In their response, the NRC acknowledged our disagreement with the cited
>violation.  They stated that "the act of posting an area does not in
>itself limit or control access to that area."  My question is if an
>unauthorized person gets a key to a laboratory, we have again failed to
>adequately limit access.  I guess the next step is to post armed guards
>outside each research laboratory!!
>
>The point of this extensive dissertation is that locks are designed to
>keep out "honest" people.  If someone wants to deliberately gain access
>to one of these areas, they will find a way.  It seems to me that the
>NRC is exhibiting a knee-jerk response to a couple of incidents that may
>have been "inside" jobs (based upon what I have read about them).   In
>those cases, locking of the labs does not seem to be the central issue.
>
> In addition to our response to the notice of violation (we committed to
>reminding everyone to lock their doors when they aren't there and
>"cracking the whip" when we find unlocked, unattended areas) I sent a
>separate document to be forwarded to the appropriate NRC office
>explaining the "reality" of the research environment in a major
>university.  It's too long to include with this already "too long"
>message, but if you're interested, call or e-mail me and I'll fax you a
>copy of what I said.  Maybe if they hear enough similar opinions, it
>will make a difference (oops, I got hopeful there for a minute - sorry).
> Sorry for the length of this message, but I thought this info might be
>of interest to you research/university types.
>
>Mack Richard
>mrichard@wpo.iupui.edu
>(317) 274-0330