- Three Mile Island looks more like a prison than a power
plant. From the guards toting semiautomatic weapons to the razor wire-topped
fences that surround areas of the plant, the message is clear intruders
are not welcome. Stop to ask directions at the front gate, and you will
be photographed and interrogated, said Michael J. Bruecks, manager of security
at TMI.
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- "This is for potential intelligence down the road,"
he said. And that's the way it has to be, said federal regulators who have
imposed tougher security standards on commercial nuclear plants since the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The nuclear industry has spent more
than $1 billion on security upgrades since that day. Industry critics have
been calling for more stringent security at the plants since the first
attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. But some critics said the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's response was slow and did not push the industry
far enough.
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- "We lobbied for years to get some of these improvements
in place, so we're happy that these have been done," said Scott Portzline,
a Harrisburg resident who has studied plant security and testified before
congressional committees. "But we still see huge gaps, which terrorists
can fly right through."
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- Exelon officials, sensitive to criticisms like Portzline's,
recently reversed their policy of not talking about security upgrades at
their plants. In recent months the company has allowed reporters onto Three
Mile Island for tours.
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- "We recognize that the public doesn't have an appreciation
for security at the plant," said Hugh McNally, Exelon's manager of
nuclear security for the mid-Atlantic region, which includes TMI, Peach
Bottom and Limerick. He said the company saw a need to balance its desire
to keep some programs secret with the need to instill confidence. "The
public is rightfully concerned about what happens here," he said.
But they should be assured as well, McNally said. "We're confident
we are positioned to handle the threat."
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- A successful terrorist attack on a commercial nuclear
plant could cause a catastrophe on the scale of the 1986 accident at the
Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine. The United Nations estimates the meltdown
at Chernobyl killed 31 people and contributed to the deaths of nearly 8,000
more. Another 7 million were injured by the accident, and fallout contaminated
231,000 square miles, an area five times the size of Pennsylvania. Critics,
including the investigative arm of the Congress, said some security weaknesses
remain at nuclear plants. Those include:
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- -- Mock attacks, known as force-on-force tests, conducted
by the NRC are infrequent and not realistic. TMI has not had one since
1994.
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- -- Federal law prohibits security guards from using automatic
weapons, even though they are expected to face them in an attack.
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- --Plants remain vulnerable to airplane attacks. And many
plants, including TMI, are short distances from private and commercial
airports where security measures may be limited.
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- The General Accounting Office, the independent investigative
arm of the Congress, last fall faulted the NRC with inadequately overseeing
security at the plants. It said the agency does not adequately test security
systems; minimizes security problems; and does not follow up inspections
to determine if changes were made. NRC officials said the report did not
note changes made since Sept. 11.
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- Security at TMI, like all nuclear plants, is designed
to prevent intruders from getting close enough to the nuclear reactor to
cause a meltdown. The site, which has a checkered history of keeping out
unauthorized visitors, has changed since Sept. 11, 2001. The guard force
has been doubled (Exelon will not say how many guards it now has); weapons
have been upgraded; guards are authorized to shoot to kill; and new fencing
designed to slow down intruders surrounds the area of the plant where the
vital buildings are located.
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- The changes begin at the main gate, where two guards,
sometimes augmented by National Guard troops and state police, stop all
vehicles. Guards identify the occupants and the purpose of the visit before
allowing the vehicle to cross the bridge onto the island. Employees undergo
this check every time they go to work. And, as a precaution against truck
bombs, their parking is limited to an area hundreds of yards from the nearest
building. Visitors who need to go farther onto the island must stop at
a second checkpoint for a more thorough search. Here, about 200 yards from
the nearest building, a barricade designed to crush the engine of vehicles
that attempt to crash through blocks the way.
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- Two more guards require the driver and passengers to
get out of the vehicle, which is searched. The guards check the undercarriage
for bombs. They swipe door handles, the steering wheel and glove compartment
with a piece of material that is checked for explosive residue. If the
test reads positive twice, the vehicle is denied entrance. "This past
summer we had stone being delivered here in dump trucks that had been
recently blasted in a quarry," Bruecks said. "The trucks tested
positive for nitro so he never got past here."
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- The protected area of the plant is surrounded by two
chain-link fences about 15 feet tall and spaced about 15 to 20 feet apart.
Between them are coils of razor wire. The fences were designed by CompuDyne,
a security firm that has installed fencing and sensors around the Kennedy
Space Center, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and more than 200 U.S.
Air Force bases.
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- The purpose of the fence is to slow intruders, said Roy
Lane, director of nuclear security for all of Exelon's plants. The fence
is also equipped with sensors that trigger alarms. Exelon officials would
not disclose details about the fence's capabilities, but the manufacturer's
Web site describes the fences' thermal sensors, which are capable of differentiating
between an animal or human.
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- Workers entering the plant must pass through a sniffer
that detects explosives and a metal detector, then they have their bags
scanned by an X- ray machine. Once through all that, they swipe their identification
card in a machine and have their hand print scanned by a computer. All
of this is overseen by two armed guards, one of whom is hidden in a fortified
booth with the ability to lock down the entrance.
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- "[The employee] has been searched for weapons. He's
been searched for explosives. He's been verified to be the owner of the
badge by hand geometry," McNally said. Most of the island, including
the river, are monitored by video cameras. In addition to the physical
barriers, the security force, provided under contract by Wackenhut Security,
passes 270 hours of training to qualify, Bruecks said. They undergo 90
hours of training a year, including 30 hours of antiterrorism training,
he said.
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- Portzline, who serves as a consultant on security issues
to anti-nuclear group Three Mile Island Alert, said the industry needs
to do more to protect itself from truck bombs. The checkpoint on TMI is
still too close to the reactor, he said. "A large truck bomb can
send a shock wave through the ground that can overcome the earthquake measures"
built into the plant, he said.
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- The shock can dislodge pipes and other equipment that
could cause the operators to lose control of the plant, he said. "We
think TMI should have vehicles checked for bombs before they cross the
bridge," Portzline said. Setback distances for truck bombs are set
by the NRC, McNally said. "Controls have been implemented at TMI to
prevent a vehicle capable of carrying the bomb beyond the safe stand-off
distance without an explosive search by security," he said.
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- Though the NRC has not done mock attacks at TMI for years,
Exelon does perform them in-house, he said. The agency also conducts computer
simulation attacks frequently, known as table-top exercises. Exelon hired
Global Security Consultants, a Florida firm, to test security measures,
Lane said. Global was chosen because many of its employees are former special
operations veterans whose work in the military involved designing assaults
on industrial facilities.
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- Though state law prohibits guards from using machine
guns, company officials said they would not use them anyway. "Automatic
fire is not a good defensive weapon," Lane said.
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