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Terrorist Threat to U.S. Chemical Facilities Can be Lowered, Not Eliminated, Officials Say By Chris Schneidmiller WASHINGTON — The U.S. chemical industry has spent more than $2 billion to increase security since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the risk of a terrorist strike on a plant can never be entirely eliminated, public and private sector officials said last week (see GSN, July 14). It would be extremely difficult to block a strike by a trained, well-armed attack force without turning chemical facilities into heavily guarded fortresses, said Gregory Keeports, risk management services director for chemical company Rohm and Haas. The difficulty in implementing antiterrorist plans is exacerbated by the troubles in collecting intelligence and the impossibility of predicting targets, he said. “One crazy person, if he’s ready to give his life, it’s hard to stop him,” Keeports said during an Aug. 29 symposium hosted by the American Chemical Society. Prior to September 2001, top safety concerns at chemical sites included theft of materials, vandalism and natural events such as hurricanes, speakers said. Those risks remain, as demonstrated by the explosion last week of a New Orleans chemical depot in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The attacks raised new security fears, and the industry has spent the subsequent years working to reduce the vulnerability of chemical production and storage sites to acts of terrorism. There are several possible uses of chemical sites by terrorists, said Scott Berger, director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Center for Chemical Process Safety. They could attack a facility in hopes of releasing a toxic cloud; attack with the intention of damaging industries reliant on chemicals; or divert chemicals for use in weaponry or to contaminate products, Berger said. A toxic release from a site near a major metropolitan community could kill hundreds of thousands of people, Berger said. He argued, though, that a number of variables could reduce casualties during an event. Taller buildings could provide shelter above the chemical cloud. Wind direction would carry the toxins away from some areas, and not all people exposed to the chemical would receive a fatal dose. “Many people, even if they do get that dose, would not be affected,” Berger said. Plant accidents in recent years have revealed continued weaknesses in the emergency response capabilities of operators and local authorities, said Carolyn Merritt, chairwoman and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. An April 2004 toxic gas release in Dalton, Ga., sent 156 people to the hospital. The plant was not equipped to manage a toxic release, and failed to inform emergency responders of the full danger posed by the escaping allyl alcohol, according to CSB investigators. Fire and police personnel, meanwhile, lacked appropriate protective gear, and firefighters did not have chemical detection equipment. Only 16 percent of local fire departments in the United States have hazardous materials teams, Merritt said. “We’re behaving as if [terrorism against chemical plants is] probably not likely and that we have all the time in the world,” she said. “I don’t think we have all the time in the world.” Improvements in security, technology and public preparedness must be made before an event that leads to a public outcry and backlash from lawmakers, Merritt said. “You need to figure out how to make that happen,” she told the symposium audience. What Has Been Done, and What Should be DoneSpeakers addressed both the efforts that have been made and the work that remains to be done to improve security at U.S. chemical sites. The Homeland Security Department has conducted security assistance visits at all “high-consequence” chemical facilities — those in which a terrorist event could harm 50,000 or more people, said Charles McQueary, DHS undersecretary for science and technology. The agency in March announced more than $90 million in grants under its Buffer Zone Protection Program, which helps local agencies purchase equipment to counter effects in their communities of an attack against a chemical or nuclear plant or another critical site. Homeland Security also has installed chemical sensor networks in the subway systems of Boston, New York and Washington, D.C, and operates a mobile facility that can analyze environmental samples for potential chemical contamination. All 130 American Chemistry Council member companies have conducted vulnerability assessments and made security improvements at more than 2,000 sites, said Dorothy Kellogg, the organization’s senior security and operations director. Efforts across the industry, Rohm and Haas’ Keeports said, have raised employees’ awareness of the terrorism threat; made sites more able to “detect, deter and delay” potential intruders; and heightened controls on chemical containers during shipping and at ports. The American Chemistry Council supports passage of federal chemical security legislation, Kellogg said, noting that not all industry firms belong to the organization. Keeports and other speakers addressed “inherently safer processes” as a strategy for reducing the danger at chemical plants. The idea is to lower the risks posed by certain operations at plants that would be impossible to simply halt. That could range from reducing the amount of transportation and storage of chlorine to removing chemicals of concern from processes such as drinking water disinfection. There are significant barriers to this effort, Keeports said. It takes an extensive amount of time and money, potentially requiring construction of new plants, he said. Inherently safer technology also would not increase plant security, only reduce the effect of a chemical release. While they work with far smaller amounts of chemicals, academics also need to control access to hazardous materials at universities and promote a culture of security among their students, said Steven Oberg, environmental health and safety director at the University of Nevada, Reno. Industry, emergency agencies and community leaders also must work together to boost plant security and enhance the response capability, speakers said. “It’s a large order and a great deal remains to be done,” McQueary said.
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