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Reactors Prepared for Attack, NRC Chairman Says By Chris Schneidmiller WASHINGTON — The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission had considered the potential for a terrorist attack against U.S. nuclear reactors for decades before the events of Sept. 11, 2001, NRC Chairman Nils Diaz said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 25, 2003). Many safety plans and procedures were already in place at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Diaz said, limiting the overhauling that had to be made afterward as the United States scrambled to increase its security. “It was not a wholesale revamping. … It was a significant tuning,” Diaz said during a seminar at the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Summit. “We were among the best prepared then and we are among the best prepared now,” he added. The commission regulates 104 commercial nuclear power plants in the United States, along with research reactors, nuclear waste disposal and spent fuel storage facilities. Its duties include ensuring security at facilities through annual inspections and “force-on-force” exercises. The 1979 partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania prompted “a sudden new focus” on safety planning for reactors, said Margaret Ryan, editorial director of McGraw-Hill’s Platts global nuclear and coal group. “Before 9/11 everyone worried about what might get out of a nuclear plant, and no one worried about what might get into a nuclear plant,” Ryan said in introducing Diaz. In his brief speech, Diaz focused on concerns about the possibility of terrorists crashing an airplane into a reactor in an attempt to release radioactive gases or attacking a facility by ground with an armed force. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has responded to the Sept. 11 attacks in various fashions, according to the agency’s Web site. Its efforts include working with other agencies to strengthen airline security, enhancing training and mitigation procedures at facilities and requiring reactors to update assessments of potential terrorist threats. There is a common response to most any action against a nuclear reactor, Diaz said — shut down the reactor, cool the core and ensure barriers are in place to block radioactive gases from reaching the public. He expressed confidence that a terrorist attack — even by airplane — would not result in the release of nuclear material. More specific response concerns have been discussed with reactor operators, Diaz said. “They have been inspected and they have been covered,” he said. Others have not always felt as strongly about the NRC safeguards. The General Accounting Office last year said in a report that the agency played down the significance of security problems and operated flawed exercises on terrorist attacks. “The steps the NRC has taken to improve security since 9/11 are not nearly sufficient to protect nuclear reactors against the terrorist threat we know they face,” U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.), one of the congressmen who requested the GAO study, said today in a prepared statement. “These inadequate measures suggest that the NRC stands for ‘Not Really Concerned’ when it comes to addressing the threat of terrorist strikes against reactors,” Markey added. Reactor security measures have been developed with the nuclear industry, rather than with independent security experts or state and local officials, Markey said. He called on the commission to initiate a public process of security improvements. Environmental and government watchdog groups last year also argued that a “force-on-force” exercise at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York was unrealistic as guards were informed of the training months in advance, there were too few mock attackers and some exercises were done during the day. Diaz acknowledged yesterday that the Indian Point security force knew of the training exercise, but said they did not know how it would occur. He also said security forces at nuclear reactors are being trained at night, and that work continues to integrate facilities’ emergency preparedness plans with local agencies. All plants have been ordered to increase their capability to repel attacks by land, sea or air, Diaz said. “We have assessed what needed to be done and we have done what needed to be done,” he said.
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