Homeland security lax at Nuke plant that stores spent fuel rods

"NRC team to examine allegations of lax security, AP, 05 Jan 06

The federal agency in charge of regulating nuclear facilities plans to send a team to a nuclear power plant south of Raleigh (Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant) to look into allegations of poor security.

The nuclear watchdog group N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network filed a complaint last month with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and alleged problems with security at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant. The Washington-based Union for Concerned Scientists joined in the complaint.

"This is a special inspection related to concerns that have been raised about inadequate security measures at the plant," said Ken Clark, an NRC spokesman in Atlanta.

Progress Energy, which owns and operates the plant, said its security is good and the plant is safe.

The complaint said guards hired by a security firm worked while they were injured, slept during their shifts and cheated on licensing tests. The complaint, based on information from an unidentified guard, also said doors didn't lock properly because hardware was worn and that some equipment to detect intruders didn't work. . . .

Kimble said doors with worn locks were fixed, but other allegations couldn't be confirmed."
http://www.newsobserver.com/158/story/385109.html


NRC to probe N-plant security, The Raleigh News and Observer, 05 Jan 06

The complaint alleged that guards, employed by an outside security firm, have been forced to cheat on guard re-licensing tests, made to work while injured, retaliated against for reporting injuries and allowed to sleep on their shifts. N.C. WARN's source of information was an unidentified guard at the Shearon Harris plant."
http://www.newsobserver.com/703/story/384961.html

http://www.ncwarn.org

"Even more worrying, the security problems have been allowed to continue while Progress Energy's North Carolina nuclear operations have apparently been the target of hostile intruders. In a well-publicized incident, someone trespassed into the owner-controlled buffer area near Shearon Harris last month and left a black flag near the top of a 100-foot communications tower. But the complaint describes other incidents that haven't become publicly known. In August, a security guard came under rifle fire from the woods near Shearon Harris, leading to a lockdown of the plant. The shooter was not found. And the same day as the flag incident at Shearon Harris, a rail line leaving Progress Energy's Brunswick nuclear plant near Wilmington was sabotaged, with someone driving spikes into a switching mechanism. The vandalism was discovered before a possible derailment occurred.

The complaint, filed Tuesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists of Cambridge, Mass., and the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network of Durham, lands on officials' desks as nuclear security is gaining renewed attention nationally. Former members of the 9/11 Commission last week issued a report card giving the Department of Homeland Security a D for failing to take adequate steps to protect the nation's nuclear plants. And the Government Accountability Office last month began a study of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's oversight of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors--particularly whether the plants are being operated safely and securely."

http://indyweek.com/durham/current/news.html

Fire Hazard, 9 Aug 04

On June 16, the commission charged with investigating the events of September 11 announced that Al Qaeda's early attack plans had included "unidentified nuclear power plants." You might think the Bush Administration would respond by doing all it could to prevent a terrorist-triggered disaster at these plants.

Think again. The Bush Administration is actually relaxing the fire safeguards there.

Instead of insisting that the plants have heat-protected mechanical systems in place that will shut down reactors automatically in case of fire, which is the current standard, the Bush Administration would actually let the power companies rely on workers to run through the plants and try to turn off the reactors by hand while parts of the facilities are engulfed in flames.
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19488


"Meanwhile, Progress Energy has taken action. First they denied the claims about the doors and responded to the other allegations by mocking the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NCWARN) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) through whom the whistleblower had communicated. Next they began harassing guards at the plant in order to out the whistleblowers (who so far remain anonymous for their own safety and job security) and reportedly destroying documents related to the security lapses.

Then Progress Energy backtracked and admitted that there were unsecured doors, yet issued no confirmation of having actually fixed these or any other problems. True to form, Progress also went on the offensive with unsubstantiated claims that protected security information may have been released and they would pass details on to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/opinio...-9323965c.html

Pools of Fire
The Looming Nuclear Nightmare
in the Woods of North Carolina

"Those railroad tracks? They're for hauling nuclear waste. The spent fuel rods are carted by rail from the Brunswick and Robinson nuclear reactors to Shearon Harris, where they are stored in four densely packed pools, filled with circulating cold water to keep the waste from heating up. The pools are interconnected and enclosed within one building. That building is attached to the reactor itself. Together, they form the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country.

All this makes Shearon Harris a very inviting target for would-be terrorists. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has fingered Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation. Thanks for letting us (and them, whoever they are) know, Mr. Ridge."
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articl...arris-Nuke.htm

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Classic American liberal

So far, just allegations. But it is pretty silly that we're subcontracting our security to private utilities. I know that was a stopgap, but still.

Yucca Mountain can't get built fast enough for me.

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Man up.