Posted on 03/25/2002 2:19:07 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Federal regulators have no set requirements for checking backgrounds of nuclear plant security employees, and the Sept. 11 hijackers could have qualified to work as security guards, according to a report released Monday by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
The report also says most plants could not withstand a plane crash.
Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been a critic of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he demanded that the agency explain its security requirements for plant operators, including employee screening ad ability to withstand terror attacks.
Worried About Security, or Attacking Nuclear Power?
The responses did not sit well with the opponent of nuclear power.
"There is little comfort to be found in the agency's response to my questions," Markey said in a statement. "Black hole after black hole is described and unaddressed. Post 9/11, a nuclear safety agency that does not know – and seems little interested in finding out – the nationality of nuclear reactor workers or the level of resources being spent on security at these sensitive facilities is not doing its job."
Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association representing the industry, disputes the allegations. A spokeswoman said the charges were consistent with Markey's opposition to nuclear energy.
"The vast majority of this report is inaccurate," said NEI spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins. "This is just part of Mr. Markey's long-standing attempt to shut down the nuclear power industry."
Markey also opposes domestic oil exploration such as President Bush's proposal to drill in a tiny section of Alaska's mammoth Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He has called for federalizing safety at nuclear power plants, even though problems with airport security have continued after the costly federal takeover of airport security.
Foreigners Treated Better Than U.S. Citizens
According to the NRC, employees with access to nuclear power plants, mostly operated by private companies, need only to pass a criminal background check that covers the United States. No investigation into the background of a foreign citizen in his home country is required.
The NRC was also unable to tell Markey the number of foreign citizens working at nuclear facilities.
"In short, it appears that al Qaida operatives such as Mohamed Atta or Marwan al Shehhi could pass the narrow nature of the criminal screening still in use at U.S. nuclear power plants and gain unescorted access to the controlled area of the plant, just as they obtained student visas to attend flight school," the report says. "As long as they have no criminal record in this country, al Qaida operatives are not required to pass any security check intended to find ad expose terrorist links prior to their employment."
The NRC also does not require plant operators, or licensees, to provide detailed information on security operations to federal regulators. But Wiggins claims the report distorts the truth about measures put into place to screen and monitor employees.
"Nuclear plant employees are required to pass stringent security and background checks," she said. "And their behavior and performance is monitored daily. As an industry, employees get the same background check performed by the FBI and this is mandated by the NRC. They are constantly evaluated for fitness for duty."
As for the claims about foreigners working in plants, Wiggins said the vast majority were longtime residents of the United States, usually educated in the country and with extensive work histories that can be verified.
As for a terror attack similar to the Sept. 11 crashes that took the lives of thousands, the Markey report finds serious design problems with most of the 103 commercial reactors that would leave most susceptible to an airline attack.
"There are 103 active civilian nuclear reactors in the U.S.," the report says. "According to the NRC, the licensees of 43 of those reactors on 28 sites did not even consider the probability of an accidental aircraft impact when the reactors were designed, built and licensed. In an additional 56 reactors on 37 sites, the licensees concluded that the probability of a accidental was so low that it did not have to be incorporated into the design of the reactors."
Twenty-one U.S. nuclear reactors are located within five miles of an airport, but 96 percent of all U.S. reactors weren't designed to withstand a crash from even a small airplane, Fox News reported.
NRC documents show that four reactors were designed to withstand the impact of aircraft weighing up to 12,500 pounds, about 3 percent the size of the Boeing 767s that hit the World Trade Center. Only the Three Mile Island facilities in Pennsylvania were found sufficiently reinforced to withstand a crash by a large airliner.
No Improvement in Airport Security
The situation is no better at America's airports, according to a confidential Feb. 19 Transportation Department memo. The department ran 783 tests of security at 32 airports around the country and found a woeful lack of security.
Inspector General Kenneth Mead found that in more than 70 percent of tests, investigators carried knives past screeners. Screeners failed to detect guns in 30 percent of tests and mock explosives in 60 percent. Investigators secretly boarded aircraft or got onto the tarmac nearly half the time.
Tests of the security system were conducted at 32 airports while the screening checkpoints were still mostly under the supervision of the airline industry, with some oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration, Fox News reported. The new Transportation Security Administration took over airline security Feb. 17.
Security administration spokesman Paul Turk said the White House requested the investigation. "The idea was to get a realistic assessment of potential needs."
"I would say it's astounding and pretty incredible, given the high state of security awareness we were under during that period," said Reynold Hoover, a counterterrorism expert who conducts seminars on checkpoint screening. "There really wasn't the change we thought there was after Sept. 11."
Former FAA security chief Billie Vincent said the equipment being used cannot detect explosives or many varieties of cutting tools.
"The technology at the screening points is not there," Vincent said. "The current metal detectors won't do the job. If you turn it high enough to detect that much metal, you will have an alarm on every person going through."
OK, pray tell what can withstand a 747 hit at 550 MPH! I'll make a list right here:
OK, someone else pick the first item.
Let's assume that a 747 @ 500 mph penetrates the Concrete reinforced containment building at a local Nuk plant.
Next, it would have to be so accurate as to hit the reactor vessel (RV) and penetrate 12" of steel.
Now assuming the reactor coolant system (RCS) is penetrated, let's assume that the safety Injection system fails to go on and does not cover the fuel rods.
Now if all that happens we have an event whereby several people MAY receive high radiation doses.
But IMHO there is NO WAY +3000 (AKA WTC event) could get killed even in such an unbeliebable set of coincidence.
" In a redux of the arrest of Wen Ho Lee two years ago, Insight has learned that federal agents have launched a probe at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) involving a Pakistani -- among others perhaps -- and compromises to a supersecret atomic-research project. "The ramifications of this are quite significant," one of two sources confirms. Insight also has learned of previously unknown security breeches at the national labs, including discovery of TOP SECRET documents and fake passports, drivers licenses and photos at a "drop site" outside one of the labs."
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