RE: Material Security

["Jim F. Herrold" <Herrold@UWYO.EDU>]

Greg:

A couple years ago, in the wake of NRC's concern over the NIH and MIT
incidents, we had an NRC inspection. Instead of waiting for the guy to ask
first, I showed him our Molecular Biology building, which is in the same
situation you described. I told him it was a fire code issue, which in my
book was more of a real hazard than the radiation. I told him the
researchers commonly use equipment in each other's labs, so locking all the
hall doors all the time did not seem reasonable. Neither did having locked
cabinets, refrigerators, etc for every bit of isotope. I asked the NRC
inspector what he would do. He said he didn't know and left it at that. Our
policy is to have each lab look after their neighbors, lock their hall doors
when they are not in the lab and stop strange people from passing through
unquestioned. (I tell them the stranger might be the NRC testing us). There
is thousands of dollars worth of equipment and computers in those labs.
Researchers have their own valid reasons to care about security and to avoid
being careless.

I'm afraid this doesn't help you a whole lot, since you are in an agreement
state. We all know the MIT and NIH situations were inside jobs anyway. No
amount of security is going to stop crazies if they have all the keys.
Luckily the NRC has backed off on the security issue a bit. It all comes
down to ALARA. What seems a reasonable solution to the regulators is not
necessarily reasonable to the rest of us. If you think the regulators are
being unreasonable, is there anyone you can appeal to?

Good luck.

Jim Herrold, Radiation Safety Officer
herrold@uwyo.edu

University of Wyoming
Environmental Health & Safety
303 Merica Hall
Laramie, WY 82071-3413

(307) 766-3277


> ----------
> From: 	Gregory M. Krause[SMTP:grekraus@badlands.NoDak.edu]
> Sent: 	Friday, November 06, 1998 3:08 PM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	Material Security
> 
> I'm looking for comments on material security in a University/Research
> setting.  Our University's Medical School research wing has laboratories
> that are cannot be completely secured.  The door to the main hall can be
> locked, but each laboratory is connected to at least one of its neighbors
> by a fire door that cannot be locked.  Naturally the researchers have used
> the fire doors to establish suites of rooms, so they can go between labs
> without going into the main hall.  Our Agreement State regulators however,
> feel that we cannot adequately secure the labs, since we cannot lock the
> fire doors.  Our security proposal was to have all stock material placed
> in locked freezers/refrigerators/cabinets/etc., store all bulk waste in
> securely locked storage rooms, and lock laboratories when not occupied.
> The State wants more, but we're not sure where we want to go with this.
> The State suggested installing loud local alarms on the fire doors, but
> the researchers are opposed since they currently use the labs as suites.
> I've proposed limiting access to the entire floors, but the professors
> also have their offices attached to their labs and locking the floors
> would limit student access to the professors.  Naturally completely
> redesigning the building is out of the question.  Any ideas?  Please
> e-mail responses to me at:  grekraus@badlands.nodak.edu
> 
> Thanks
> 
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