Posted on 07/09/2005 7:33:21 PM PDT by EBH
Anybody from grandmothers to terrorists can drive within a few hundred feet of the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor without being challenged, claims an anti-nuclear watchdog group.
But that's not really a security issue, say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron.
Two members of the group, Ohio Citizen Action, drove onto the Toledo-area power plant site July 1 after noticing an unguarded and open-gated service road at the plant along Ohio 2. The couple, whom Citizen Action would not identify, wanted to see how far they could drive into the 1,000-acre site before security ordered them to turn around.
They stopped and photographed the plant's cooling tower, waited "a while" and left without security ever appearing. Citizen Action is running the photo and a brief article on its Web site:
www.ohiocitizenaction.org.
"We are not saying they got inside the nuclear reactor, only that it seems odd that they got in this far and nobody questioned them," said the group's executive director, Sandy Buchanan.
FirstEnergy Corp. said the couple were nowhere near the reactor, but in a parking lot where contractors leave their cars before walking through a series of checkpoints.
"Is it possible to get into areas like that? Yes. But does it get you near any vital equipment? No. This is bogus, a publicity stunt," said company spokesman Richard Wilkins.
The commission issued tougher security standards last fall and FirstEnergy's three nuclear power plants met them, Wilkins said. "I am not aware of any requirement that this parking lot has to be secured by security forces," he said.
NRC spokesman Jan Strasma agreed that Davis-Besse meets regulations.
"I can understand how a member of the public would think that if they drive past the cooling tower, they are in an area that should be secured," Strasma said. "But we don't see a security issue here."
David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group, disagreed. "The NRC wants the plant security to be aware of who is there and why," he said. "This is why the public is doubtful of nuclear plant security claims."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138
Reconning a cooling tower from a contractors parking lot thats nowhere near the reactor which is in the protected site is what I hope stupid terrorsts do. They may as well stake out the local garbage dump....same level of threat.
What this shows is that 60's era anti-nuke activists aren't yet dead, but their brains are...
The only way a terrorist can do anything remotely harmful at a nuke power plant is if they can get inside and remove the rods from the core.
We have a better chance of spinning off into space than that happening.
I remember when I worked for IBM, I thought for the fun of it, I would call a different telephone number that was on a different IBM computer at Telephone Company site.
I suddenly was asked by my manager what I was doing -- which means they traced the call to my house, and to me. That is what security we had 20 years ago. Now with Homeland Security, it is possible to...
But the key point is not to show what security is there. That is information terrorists can use.
And I have another incident with a Presidental Motorcade, where everyone else was pulled over but my car, and I was going on way on an Expressway, and the Presidental Motorcade the other.
This was a few years after I had worked on a major Defense Project, and I think some Secret Service type was having fun with me...
Doesn't that harm the terrorist more than the power plant? There is no damage except the rods being removed, and the guy would be dead (from radiation) in a short period of time and be declared hazardous waste as was people who drank Radium Water as a health food back in the 1910's and 1920's.
I don't know the safety factor used, but if you remove too many rods, the core will go critical and melt down. I assume it takes removing more than one to go red, but I wouldn't doubt the guy becomes hazardous waste before the core goes red.
Are you saying that security (Government or Private) should use legal force (anti-tank missile) to destroy the car?
We never know in this day and age what real or imagined security exists at such places.
There was a Breaking Article about Middle Eastern Men being caught studying subway maps.
Of course, it was an alleged Fire Inspection that spooked the Middle Eastern Men.
Though it might take a court order for police to enter a building, it does not for a fire inspection.
And after spooking the men, they probably called people that the good guys monitored and translated. Sometimes you don't arrest a small fish when you can catch bigger fish with the small fish... It is all about what the rules are and how you play the game!
I would've laughed if the story had said they drove further into plant property and all of a sudden their car started taking automatic fire.
I'm sure they wouldn't be whining about security.
Or, maybe they would :-)
You don't exactly walk up to a reactor and remove a rod. The rods are sealed inside the reactor which is a 4" thick steel vessel. To remove the head requires an operation that is beyond the tools you can buy from Sears or Snap-on. Getting the head off requires the use of a crane.
Before terrorists could even get close to a reactor vessel, they'd have to pass through several layers of security. Not to mention getting though closed and sealed hatches. You're not talking about an in and out in fifteen minute job even with explosives. Three feet of concrete lined by steel that can withstand a direct hit by a 747 isn't going to be responsive to terrorists' efforts.
We'd all be safer if terrorists were as stupid as environmentalists. It's not likely...
We'd all be safer if terrorists were as stupid as environmentalists. It's not likely...
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