Lawmaker alleges negligence in nuclear power security

JOSH MEYER LOS ANGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON -- The nation's 103 nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to a potentially catastrophic terrorist attack but have taken few safety countermeasures since Sept. 11, even though they have been targeted by the al-Qaida network, a congressman alleged in a report released Monday.

In the document -- which was discounted by the nuclear power industry -- Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said the nation's commercially operated reactors are at risk from a wide variety of assaults, including sabotage from foreign workers who were not screened adequately for ties to terrorist organizations.

The nuclear plants are also vulnerable to the same kind of suicide hijackings that leveled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, Markey said in the report, titled "Security Gap: A Hard Look at Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security."

Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is a longtime critic of the commission and has accused it of being too cozy with the industry it regulates. He said his report was based on information provided by the commission's five members and other regulatory officials in response to his detailed questions about nuclear plant safety after Sept. 11.

Meltdown threat

If hijackers rammed even a relatively small plane into a nuclear reactor, it could cause a full-scale meltdown and widespread radiation contamination, Markey said.

The report also contends that guards at nuclear plants are underpaid, undertrained and incapable of repelling an attack from marauding terrorists intent on gaining entry to the facility. And spent radioactive nuclear fuel from the plants also isn't protected as well as it should be, he added.

Nuclear regulatory officials said Markey's report was far too critical of safety issues at nuclear plants, and inaccurate in places. They would not, discuss in detail, however, where the report might be inaccurate, saying they would respond on a point-by-point basis at a later date.

"On the whole we disagree with his contention that we have not done enough to strengthen security," said NRC spokesman Victor Dricks. "Security at nuclear plants was strong before 9/11 and it was strengthened in the immediate aftermath of the attacks."

But Markey said many of the responses by NRC officials were unsatisfactory.

"Black hole after black hole is described and left unaddressed," he wrote. "Post-(Sept. 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."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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