The Rockets' Red Glare

By J.A. Savage, AlterNet. Posted June 26, 2002.

Independence Day 2002 -- loaded with patriotism and common-denominator celebration -- creates an attractive target date for terrorists. But if those fireworks are exploding anywhere near the nation's 103 operating commercial nuclear reactors, you might want to make sure those blasts are from "safe-and-sane" fireworks.

Consider this, since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: -- Security drills at all nuclear power plants have been suspended.

-- After nearly 10 months, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is still evaluating a change in its basic engineering assumptions over the ability for nuclear facilities to withstand attacks.

-- The NRC is also still evaluating potential effects of a large airplane strike on a nuke.

-- No national NRC security inspector has visited at least one of the largest nuclear plants in the nation since the beginning of the year -- the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego, Calif. This is despite "numerous threats to the San Onofre facility, according to the FBI.

-- Only one NRC security inspector has been assigned since January for all the 21 operating reactors in the western region. Two more security inspector positions are being filled.

Although it is ostensibly doing something, between the secrecy surrounding new security measures and the significant lag time in evaluating new engineering and design to harden commercial facilities, the NRC appears publicly blasé about nuclear plants' vulnerability. NRC spokesperson Breck Henderson responded to a minimum of inquiries, for instance, but prefaced the federal riposte with: "You're not doing another story on security?"

Federal regulators' indifferent attitude was highlighted in a spat carried out in the nation's media in April. A recent discovery at the Davis-Besse plant that found corrosion had withered away nearly all of the reactor cap containment brought a general "no problem" from regulators. That was challenged by a former NRC member. Victor Gilinsky, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post called the NRC's "bland pronouncements" about the safety of nuclear plants given the hole at Davis-Besse "disturbing." Current NRC chair Richard Meserve defended the agency's response as "appropriate" in an op-ed response.

The NRC is also tortoise-slow in its federal carapace in getting action on security measures. It has been anything but bland in opposing any attempt by Congress to require active military defenses at power plants, assuring leaders it is unnecessary.

The most vociferous opponent of using active defense through the military at nuclear plants is NRC commissioner Ed McGaffigan. He's dismissed Congressional concerns, and yet admits, "There will be some vulnerability. Not every building is going to be built like a missile silo."

Since Sept. 11, the NRC has, and has not, done the following to address concerns over terrorists using nuclear plants as a target. The potential, remember, could be catastrophic. If a spent fuel assembly was hit, it would only take one-fourth of one assembly (out of many hundreds) dispersed by a high explosive to contaminate with radioactivity more than 1000 square miles, according to the federal National Council on Radiation Protection Draft Report from Sept. 2000.

Increased security

The NRC will not give details of what it has requested nuclear power plant owners to accomplish at their operating reactors to increase security. In general, however, the NRC ordered reactor owners on February 25 to: increase patrols, augment security forces and capabilities, add security posts, install additional physical barriers, reposition vehicle checks at greater stand-off distances, enhance coordination with law enforcement and military authorities and restrict site access controls, according to Meserve.

In addition to the secret security measures ordered by the NRC, other agencies have some responsibility for nuclear plants. For instance, the FBI coordinates with nuclear owners, but at at least one plant the FBI did not "change gears" in its relationship with the owners after "numerous threats" to San Onofre, according to John A. Sylvester, supervisor, counter-terrorism squad 15 (San Diego). Sylvester did say that the FBI has been "tweaking protocols a little" for the plant. "It's a big part of our operations just because who they are. It's a devastating-type target," Sylvester noted.

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