|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Remain Vulnerable to Terrorist Attack, Some Experts Say
Defenses at U.S. nuclear power plants remain inadequate to prevent an attack by a force the size of the one al-Qaeda put together on Sept. 11, 2001, experts said in a Time magazine article published today (see GSN, June 13). Security personnel at the plants are only required to train to repel a force far smaller than the 19 men involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. Time estimated there are 80 guards at each reactor, spread across four shifts of 20 each. In a terrorist strike, they could face a highly committed, better-armed force with no concern about its members’ lives. “These guys are coming in to die. They know they’re not leaving,” said one nuclear plant guard. “Our training has increased, but I don’t think it’s increased enough to deal with that.” “Everyone feels that way,” according to a guard at another facility. “It’s a consensus of opinion.” Security efforts also tend to stop at nuclear plant doors, with few fail-safe mechanisms built into control rooms, according to physicist Kenneth Bergeron, a former nuclear-reactor safety researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “A knowledgeable terrorist inside a control room can cause a meltdown in fairly short order,” said nuclear-safety expert Paul Blanch. The Union of Concerned Scientists said that a meltdown at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, 35 miles away from New York City, could emit radiation killing up to 44,000 people within a year and cause up to 518,000 cancer deaths. The Nuclear Energy Institute puts the death toll from an attack at about 100, with one senior official saying the chances of such an event are “so incredibly low it is not credible,” according to Time. U.S. officials have said that Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told investigators that he initially planned to have some of the suicide pilots fly into nuclear power plants. Mohammad Atta, the pilot of the first aircraft to strike the World Trade Center, “had considered targeting a nuclear facility he had seen during familiarization flights near New York,” according to the final Sept. 11 commission report. At the start of the Iraq war in 2003, National Guard troops were sent to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station near Phoenix, Ariz., following indications that Iraqi terrorist sleeper cells planned to attack the facility. Studies commissioned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, however, have concluded that the concrete-and-steel containment surrounding nuclear plants would withstand an airplane hit. Some experts, including a recent National Academy of Sciences panel, disagree. Other experts have said that saboteurs would have a difficult time causing a nuclear meltdown. “It would require a relatively large number of highly experienced experts in nuclear technology to be able to intentionally provoke a nuclear accident from within a reactor,” said Georges Le Guelte, a former French representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and nuclear security adviser to the Institute of International and Strategic Relations. In addition, the Energy Department has significantly improved its security standards since Sept. 11, said Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Nils Diaz. Such improvements include new physical barriers, vehicle checkpoints set further from plants and improved coordination with local and military authorities. “Any terrorist who looks at one of these facilities is going to say, ‘This is a hardened target, and I’m not going to have any confidence that I am going to be successful [attacking it],’” said Diaz. Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has nevertheless pressed for further security improvements. One measure he sponsored would have required nuclear facilities to be able to defend themselves against a Sept. 11-size force, and another would have created a federal Nuclear Security Force. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and industry representatives, however, helped to defeat the legislation by arguing that a federalized force would undermine the current close cooperation between plant operators and guards. “That would actually create almost a barrier between security and safety,” said Diaz (Thompson/Crumley, Time, June 20).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
