Federal Inspectors Question Security at U

Federal Inspectors Question Security at U.S. Nuclear Facilities

By Dave Montgomery, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas -- Mar. 17

Security forces at the nation's nuclear facilities are being weakened by deteriorating training programs, manpower shortages, long hours and fatigue, raising doubts about their ability to respond to terrorist attacks, according to investigations by federal inspectors and a public watchdog group.

Ten nuclear weapons facilities, including the Pantex site near Amarillo, have curtailed or eliminated key elements of a training curriculum designed in part to fend off terrorist attackers, the Department of Energy's inspector general reported Tuesday.

One site dropped 40 percent of the required 320 hours of basic police training, the report said.

"Inconsistent training methods may increase the risk that the department's protective forces will not be able to safely respond to security incidents or will use excessive levels of force," said the audit by Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman.

Other recent inquiries have questioned the level of security ringing the nation's 65 nuclear power plants, which also are considered potential targets for terrorist attacks.

The Washington-based Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, which scrutinizes a wide range of federal programs, charged last week that nuclear power plants are "not even close" to being prepared for a potential terrorist threat.

Most plants would have to quadruple their security to adequately confront terrorist attackers, said POGO Director Danielle Brian. The number of security forces at one unidentified plant, she said, drops by as much as 25 percent on weekends and holidays, in violation of a plant security plan ordered after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Peter Stockton, a POGO investigator, said that manpower shortages at nuclear facilities have often forced guards to log more than 50 to 60 hours of overtime a week, resulting in "a horrendous fatigue factor."

"If these guys were attacked," he said, "they wouldn't know which end is up."

Two senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee charged this month that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weakening fire protection regulations designed to ensure that a nuclear reactor can be safely and automatically shut down in the event of a fire caused by a terrorist attack or accident.

"Now is not the time to weaken fire safety at nuclear reactors," Reps. John Dingell of Michigan and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, said in a March 3 letter to NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz. "As you know, Al Qaeda continues to place nuclear reactors at the top of its terrorist target list."

Pantex, the nation's only facility where nuclear weapons are assembled, drew dubious national attention in January after disclosures that workers taped together broken pieces of a high explosive being removed from the plutonium trigger of an old warhead. A federal oversight agency said the incident risked a "violent reaction."

The 3,500-employee weapons plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, was included among the sites reviewed in the DOE inspector general's assessment of training programs. The Department of Energy earlier conducted a centralized training program in New Mexico but, in May 2001, allowed nuclear plants to individually conduct on-site training, provided they adhered to a core curriculum.

The auditor, however, concluded that each of the sites, including Pantex, had eliminated or substantially modified "significant portions of the training while others were not using realistic training delivery methods."

Only one site conducted basic training in the use of a shotgun, Friedman said. Seven sites modified or reduced the intensity of training "for skills that some security experts characterized as critical," including handcuffing, hand-to-hand combat and vehicle assaults.

The report did not elaborate on procedures at each site, and Pantex officials could not be reached to comment. POGO's Stockton, who has conducted extensive research at all the facilities, said Pantex generally takes training "more seriously" than many of the other sites.

Some of the facilities, the report said, used "unrealistic training methods" that fell short of introducing guards to the real-life situations they might confront in a terrorist attack.

Vehicle assault training, for instance, used wooden mock-ups or vehicles with the glass removed, apparently to avoid injuries.

Moreover, said the report, none of the sites conducted training in rappelling, even though it is part of the required curriculum for special response teams. Several sites excluded training with shotguns and batons because they didn't have the equipment.

Friedman said that "anything less" than realistic training "may rob the trainee of the exposure to the levels of force, panic and confusion that are usually present during an actual attack and increase the possibility of an inappropriate response."

The findings could give Democrats ammunition to bolster their election-year assertions that the Bush administration has failed to adequately safeguard the nation against another terrorist attack.

Markey said the review shows that security at the nation's nuclear complex is "woefully inadequate" and ill-prepared to defend against terrorists "who are highly-trained, well-armed and suicidal.

"The Bush administration cannot continue to nickel and dime security training at nuclear weapons labs," said the Democratic lawmaker. He said guards should be required to meet "tough fitness standards" and be spared from working "excessive overtime."

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