Dec 4 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Bill Vidonic Beaver County Times, Pa.

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured the public that a nuclear power plant, including the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport, could withstand a hit from a passenger jet.

Yet, in recent months, a 1982 study has come to light that showed that an impact from a Boeing 707 or a larger plane could cause devastating damage that could result in the release of radiation, or even cause a meltdown of the plant's core.

And a Washington, D.C.-based nuclear safety engineer believes that while plants have been made safer from ground attacks, they are still vulnerable to an attack from the skies.

Dave Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists points to a 1982 study that describes -- in great detail -- what parts of a nuclear plant are most vulnerable if a plane would smash into it. That report is available to the public through libraries throughout the country, according to a recent NBC News investigation, though it is not available at any Beaver County library.

Lochbaum said that it's "highly likely" that if a plane hit at a vulnerable point including a plant's control room, employees there would lose control of the plant, and radiation would be released into the air. "With months and years of training" similar to what the hijackers of Sept. 11 underwent, Lochbaum said, "plants are vulnerable" to an air attack.

Dave Dillon of FirstEnergy, which owns the Shippingport nuclear facility, said that the plant is "designed with multiple layers of protection," and that employees there coordinate with state, local and federal officials.

However, Dillon said Thursday he couldn't be specific on what security measures are in place because, "We don't want to tip our hands to the bad guys."

After Sept. 11, 2001, the NRC ordered security upgrades at nuclear power plants across the United States. It also removed what it considered to be sensitive documents from its Web site and ordered some documents removed from repositories around the country. Among those repositories were 86 community libraries close to the nuclear facilities, according to the U.S. House Committee on Science.

In recent months, employees of NBC News visited 25 libraries that contained the information. There, according to MSNBC's Web site, employees were able to obtain documents that the NRC had declared sensitive and had removed from its Web site.

Lochbaum said that earlier this year, his scientists group obtained a collection of NRC documents that were being stored at a Massachusetts library near a decommissioned nuclear plant. The NRC didn't want the collection of 20,000 documents, Lochbaum said, and the library gave it to his group on the condition that the entire collection would be available to the public.

Among the collection, Lochbaum said, is a document titled "Evaluation of Aircraft Crash Hazards Analyses for Nuclear Power Plants," written by researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory at the University of Chicago.

Though Lochbaum didn't want to get too specific about what areas of nuclear power plants were considered vulnerable, he did acknowledge that the study said that an impact of a Boeing 707 could cause enough damage to cause a core meltdown or a fire that would spew radiation into the air.

The larger the airplane, Lochbaum said, the more severe the damage could be, and he's concerned that plants aren't prepared for danger from the skies.

"They're assuming zero percent chance of an air attack," Lochbaum said Thursday.

According to an NRC statement dated, the federal agency said it took steps to limit sensitive documents available to the public, though it acknowledged that "a limited amount of information continues to exist in the public domain."

However, the NRC said, the agency doesn't think the information is useful because of changes in security and technology. "We would not have left this material in local public document rooms or public libraries had there been concern that it could aid adversaries," the release stated. "We can assure the public that information directly related to the security programs and protection of nuclear power plants is not in the public domain."

Lochbaum said of the NRC's statement, "That's a nice thing to say, but there's no truth in it."

The only Beaver County repository for the documents was at the B.F. Jones Memorial Library in Aliquippa.

According to library director Mary Elizabeth Colombo, the NRC decided several years ago that it wouldn't store documents in Aliquippa and pulled those that were considered sensitive. The rest of the documents, Colombo said, were left there by the NRC, and library employees were told they could do whatever they wanted with them. Colombo said the documents weren't widely read anyway, so the library threw them out.

Dillon said FirstEnergy wasn't concerned about the issue, since the Aliquippa library doesn't have the documents.

 

THE DANGER:

In the event of a release of nuclear radiation:

--Exposure to heavy doses of radiation could cause death within a few days or months.

--Exposure to lower doses could lead to an increased risk of developing cancer and other health problems.

In the event of a core meltdown:

--A huge amount of thermal energy and radiation is released into the environment.

 

Sources: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Encyclopedia Britannica