Energy Probe

Robert Fife
National Post
September 27, 2001

OTTAWA – Canada has dramatically tightened security at vital oil fields, nuclear power plants and hydroelectric facilities to prevent possible terrorist strikes that could disable the Canadian and U.S. economies, Ralph Goodale, the Minister of Natural Resources, said yesterday.

The federal and provincial governments acted quickly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to protect vulnerable economic installations such as Alberta’s vast oil and gas fields, which supply more energy to the U.S. market than Saudi Arabia.

Security has also been increased at major hydroelectric dams in Quebec and at 20 nuclear reactors in Ontario as well as electrical utilities in other provinces. New Brunswick and Quebec each operate one Candu reactor.

”Security measures were increased immediately. They remain in place,” Mr. Goodale told reporters. ”Obviously I cannot discuss what they are or what their nature is, but the process is ongoing and there is a high degree of collaboration among all the jurisdictions.”

Also, Atomic Energy of Canada has imposed a secure air space of 3,000 feet and 3.5 nautical miles around its research campus at Chalk River, Ont., said spokeswoman Louise Duhamel.

Any aircraft must get permission to come within that space. Public tours and visits to the Chalk River facility have also been halted.

The campus, home to nuclear material and Canada’s top nuclear scientists, was already under extremely tight security. Officials say CF-18 fighter jets can be scrambled to ward off any attack.

Mr. Goodale would not say whether military personnel have been deployed to Canadian nuclear facilities, but acknowledged Ottawa has not ruled out the serious threat of a terrorist-manned plane hitting a reactor.

”Obviously that is an issue that is at least a hypothetical concern that people want to make sure that we address,” Mr. Goodale said. ”I have spoken to both the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and also the president of the AECL [Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.] to satisfy myself about their level of confidence in terms of the safety and security arrangements that are in place at a heightened level.”

As early as 1987, Iran threatened attacks against U.S. reactors, and recent trial testimony in New York revealed Osama bin Laden’s training camps are offering instruction in urban warfare against enemy installations that include power plants.

In the United States, two nuclear watchdog groups warned the 103 nuclear power reactors in the country are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because regulatory bodies have failed to implement adequate security.

The Nuclear Control Institute in Washington and the Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap say they have tried over the past 17 years to persuade the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and commercial nuclear plant operators to improve their defences against possible terrorist strikes.

The two groups outlined specific proposals to foil any terrorist, including immediate use of National Guard troops to deter attacks from land and water, deployment of anti-aircraft weapons against suicide attacks, and a thorough revetting of all plant employees and contractors to protect against sabotage by insiders.

However, U.S. officials downplayed the possibility of serious damage, saying both nuclear reactors and outdoor casks used to store spent nuclear fuel are shielded by layers of steel and concrete.

”It hasn’t been analyzed whether the casks could withstand a crash from a large commercial aircraft, but the casks are robust,” said Sue Gagner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington. ”If a cask were breached, any impact would be localized.”

Mr. Goodale said the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service are co-operating with the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The overall security is being handled by the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, which falls under the umbrella of the Department of National Defence.

Premier Ralph Klein said last week that Alberta’s energy industry fires much of the nation’s economy and is becoming increasingly important to the United States. He said the province wouldn’t rule out asking Ottawa to commit troops to protect oil sites if deemed necessary.

Tom Doggett
Toronto Star
September 26, 2001

WASHINGTON – The United States’ 103 nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to acts of terrorism and the government should immediately station soldiers and missiles around each plant for protection, two watchdog groups said yesterday.

Nuclear power plants are located in 31 states and provide about 20 per cent of the nation’s electricity supply.

The Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute and the Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap urged the government to immediately station 30 to 40 National Guard troops around each nuclear plant to protect it from attacks.

The watchdog groups also said the government should be prepared to deploy anti-aircraft weapons to shoot down after

Another needed measure is to carefully re-check the background of all nuclear plant employees and contractors to prevent internal sabotage.

U.S. soldiers would have about seven seconds fire a missile and destroy a commercial airliner that is one mile from a reactor and travelling 805 km/hr, the groups said.

The groups, which monitor the spread of nuclear weapons, said they prepared a detailed analysis of which U.S. nuclear plants were most vulnerable. However, that report will be given only to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), they said.

“It is prudent to assume, especially after the horrific, highly coordinated attacks of Sept. 11, that (Osama) bin Laden’s soldiers have done their homework and are fully capable to attack nuclear plants for maximum effect,” said Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute.

The groups underscored what they see as an immediate danger by noting that nearly half the U.S. nuclear plants in routine NRC-supervised tests failed to repel mock attacks.

“The new threat should now be evident to all, and the country can afford to wait no longer,” said Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap. “The vulnerabilities at these plants can, and must, be closed now.”

U. S. plants increased security after the Sept. 11 attacks, which left nearly 7,000 people dead or missing.

“We take the security threat very seriously,” said NRC spokesperson Victor Dricks.

“In light of the terrorist attacks, it’s only prudent that we look at our security regulations to make sure they’re adequate to meet the challenge.”

The NRC has acknowledged it is unsure if U.S. nuclear power plants could withstand the crash of large, commercial airplanes, such as the kind that attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

The nuclear facilities, all of which are more than 30 years old, were designed to withstand tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes.

A direct, high-speed hit by a large passenger jet “would in fact have a high likelihood of penetrating a containment building” that houses a nuclear power reactor, said Edwin Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute. A plane’s fuselage would likely crumble on impact, but its engines, made of stronger steel, would probably break through a reactor’s concrete shell.

In such an event, the release of radiation could result in widespread effects downwind from the plant.

Martin Mittelstaedt
Globe and Mail
September 26, 2001

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says atomic power stations in the United States could be vulnerable to attacks by airliners used as missiles, but Canadian nuclear authorities are refusing to comment on whether domestic reactors are similarly at risk.

The NRC, the U.S. atomic watchdog agency, issued a statement on Friday saying that nuclear generating plants are designed to withstand extreme events, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes, but not terrorist strikes of the kind the United States experienced on Sept. 11.

The statement was issued because of the concern that terrorists might target atomic plants next.

“What would happen if a large commercial airliner was intentionally crashed into a nuclear plant?” the commission asked. “The NRC did not specifically contemplate attacks by aircraft such as Boeing 757s or 767s and nuclear power plants were not designed to withstand such crashes.”

The commission initially denied that stations were at risk from air attacks after hijacked passenger planes were crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. However, international nuclear safety authorities disputed that claim, and the NRC later admitted its earlier comments were wrong.

Canadian nuclear authorities are refusing to comment on whether the thick concrete and steel containment domes around domestic reactors are any more secure against attack than the similar structures used in U.S. stations.

“What we’re saying is the units are designed with earthquakes and impact considerations,” said John Earl, spokesman for Ontario Power Generation, the country’s biggest nuclear operator.

But he refused to comment on how a reactor would fare if struck by a big plane.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, this country’s atomic industry watchdog, refused to comment on whether stations could handle an airplane strike, or whether it has acted on a request by Energy Probe, an environmental think tank, for atomic facilities to be guarded by the military.

“I’m not going to talk about specific incidents,” said Jim Leveque, the commission’s spokesman.

Nuclear-safety critics say the stations are huge sitting ducks for terrorist attacks because any strike that disables a station’s emergency shut-down system could lead to a reactor meltdown.

If the meltdown caused radioactivity to escape, it could render huge areas uninhabitable for decades, causing a major economic catastrophe.

In the United States, nuclear critics are also urging beefed up protection at atomic stations. The Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington non-proliferation group, has asked for National Guard troops and air defences to be placed around stations, but it hasn’t had a response.

“As a first step, security against ground attack should be immediately and permanently stepped up,” said Tom Clements, the institute’s executive director.

He said the admission that a station could not handle a big air crash also is troubling. “If the reactors and associated key buildings can’t be protected against a credible threat, then there must be a discussion about the status of those facilities,” he said.

The NRC said that detailed engineering analyses of what a large airliner crash might do to a reactor complex have not yet been performed.

Like their Canadian counterparts, many U.S. nuclear plant owners are storing highly radioactive spent fuel around their stations in concrete storage bins.

The NRC said the ability of the bins to take a direct hit from an airliner hasn’t been analyzed, but it said that if one were breached, it believed the impact would only affect the surrounding area.

Toronto Star
September 26, 2001

Critics say the industry is in denial on the threat of airborne attack OTTAWA (CP) — Canada’s nuclear power plants have stepped up security since the terrorist attacks in the U.S., and the nuclear industry is facing tough questions about the vulnerability of reactors.

A spokesman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal agency that oversees nuclear safety, is playing down concerns, saying there is no identified terrorist threat against Canada.

But critics say the industry is in denial about the threat of airborne attack, which the reactors were never designed to withstand.

Canada’s 22 reactors were placed on “enhanced security” within hours of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, said commission spokesman James Levesque.

He declined for security reasons to say what measures were taken.

“The information we’re getting from the federal people who do intelligence is that there is at this time no identified threat against Canada,” said Levesque.

Atomic Energy of Canada has imposed a secure air space of 3,000 feet and 3.5 nautical miles around its research campus at Chalk River, Ont., said spokeswoman Louise Duhamel.

Any aircraft must request permission to come within that space.

The Crown corporation is in contact with the RCMP and CSIS on a daily basis, said Duhamel. It has also halted all public tours and visits to the Chalk River facility.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has conceded that its reactors are vulnerable to airline crashes, but Canadian officials are not making such admissions.

Pat Breton, a spokesman for Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale, would say only that security of the reactors is under review.

“On the issue of, `Could it withstand an attack similar to the World Trade Center?’, the president of the (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) has assured us that the measures in place are adequate but are under evaluation.

“Up until Sept. 11 that sort of thing wasn’t contemplated, so that evaluation is ongoing.”

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ordered “increased patrols, augmented security forces and capabilities, additional security posts and . . . limited access of personnel and vehicles to sites.”

Two U.S. watchdog groups, the Nuclear Control Institute and the Committee to Bridge the Gap, have called for armed troops and anti-aircraft weapons to be deployed around reactors.

The fear is that an airborne attack could rupture the containment buildings designed to isolate radioactive materials in the event of a spill.

“You’d have millions of people potentially exposed to radioactivity,” said a source with experience in the Canadian nuclear industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“If it’s in the drinking water supply, you’d have a disaster of unimaginable magnitude.”

The source said reactors should be defended by ground-to-air missiles capable of intercepting any aircraft entering their secure air space.

“It might have sounded crazy a few weeks ago but it’s not crazy. An unidentified flying object that comes into a secure air space would be blown up.”

The new security measures are bound to increase costs for nuclear operators, and will add to the debate about the economics of nuclear power.

A spokesman for the Office for Critical Infrastructure Protection, a federal agency concerned with emergency preparedness, declined to comment on whether nuclear reactors are adequately protected.

“The plants are privately run, they’re run by provincial authorities and provincial corporations and the actual physical security is the responsibility of the operator,” said Max London.

Reuters
New York Times
September 24, 2001

MIAMI – The Coast Guard has set up a precautionary secure zone in the waters around Turkey Point nuclear power plant south of Miami, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Coast Guard spokesman Ron LaBrec said boaters would be banned from the area in the event of an incident or threat involving the plant.

The zone was set up as one of a series of security measures taken by the Coast Guard in Florida waters after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Steps include protecting cruise ships entering and leaving ports such as Miami.

The security zone around Turkey Point, which is about 25 miles south of Miami, would mean that in the event of an incident or threat, the Coast Guard could advise boaters and anglers the area was closed.

The zone will remain effect until June, the National Park Service said.

Campbell Morrison
The Moncton Times and Transcript
September 21, 2001

One of Canada’s pre-eminent environmental groups is calling for military protection of New Brunswick’s nuclear power station at Point Lepreau.

Energy Probe executive director Tom Adams said Point Lepreau faces special security risks because of its proximity to the U.S. border and because of the small army of international technicians who have been trained at the station and know it inside out.

That information could be used to sabotage the 635-megawatt power station from the inside, he said.

“We recommended both military protection and intelligence effort be applied to these various risks,” he said.

“Very large numbers of individuals have been in these training programs developing detailed technical knowledge about Candu systems that could be specifically used to guide strategic attacks,” he said yesterday. “Somebody that knows a plant from the inside out would not need a truck bomb.”

People from Romania, Pakistan, India, Argentina and Korea have been trained at Point Lepreau and the Pickering nuclear power station in Ontario.

“We have proliferated detailed knowledge about these facilities. I am not suggesting any particular individuals or that we have any information about these people, I am just saying that there are thousands and thousands of nuclear trained technicians out there in the world and their knowledge represents a potential security risk that has to be accounted for.”

Adams wrote a letter to the prime minister and other cabinet ministers describing the security risks at Canada’s nuclear power stations and recommending means to address them.

“All the nuclear power stations are designed with an inadequate appreciation of risk of sabotage,” he said.

Adams conceded that Energy Probe opposes nuclear power in general, but said its long campaign against it gives it special insight into the risks involved.

“Notwithstanding our opposition in general, we have some detailed knowledge about the operation of these bodies.”

Adams refused to release his letter, arguing that its contents would be helpful to terrorists.

Martin Mittelstaedt
Globe and Mail
September 19, 2001

The military should protect nuclear power plants in Canada against terrorist attacks such as those that occurred last week in the United States, Energy Probe says.

The environmental policy group wrote to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Defence Minister Arthur Eggleton and Solicitor-General Lawrence MacAulay on Saturday, asking for a federal military presence at the country’s five nuclear power complexes in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and at other atomic facilities.

Such a request, if granted, would increase security dramatically at the sprawling power plants. Guards now don’t even carry weapons, and anglers’ boats often pass nearby.

Energy Probe executive director Tom Adams said the stations, and other nuclear installations, were not designed to withstand attacks. “It’s clear that the nuclear industry has not made anything like adequate precautions,” he said.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal watchdog that reviews security arrangements at atomic installations, refused to answer questions about the request, saying to do so might compromise security arrangements.

“We’re not going to talk about specific measures,” Jim Leveque, commission spokesman said.

Energy Probe refused to release the text of its letter, but Mr. Adams said it identified a number of safety oversights that could be useful to terrorists. It didn’t say why it believes military personnel would make reactors safer.

The call for extra protection comes amid worry about the ability of such plants to withstand attacks.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission insisted yesterday that reactors can withstand aircraft impacts such as those that brought down two World Trade Center towers last week.

“It is the considered opinion of the NRC that these are very robust, and it is unlikely that a large airliner could penetrate the containment,” commission spokesman William Beecher said.

That view is disputed by the United-Nations-chartered International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Its spokesman said on Monday that reactors would likely be penetrated if an aircraft hit.

The view that reactors are vulnerable is echoed by independent safety experts, who say atomic power plants haven’t been built to survive an impact from modern, wide-bodied planes of the kind that were flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“No nuclear plant anywhere in the world is designed against this kind of event,” said Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Mass.

Although an airplane strike on a nuclear plant wouldn’t kill a lot of people immediately, a burning reactor would contaminate a wide area with radiation, as the Chernobyl plant in the former Soviet Union did in 1986.

Mr. Thompson said some plants in the United States can withstand strikes by planes lighter than those used in the attacks last week.

These plants, such as the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania, are near airport flight paths and were designed with slightly thicker concrete walls in their containment domes, but even these would be no match for a hit by a big plane.

He said military guards wouldn’t be much use in an air attack.

Eugene Carroll
St Paul Pioneer Press
September 18, 2001

In the wake of the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon, American security officials have begun to think in earnest about some of the other targets that future terrorists might attack.

Among those that come to mind are America’s huge oil refineries, which could be set aflame with catastrophic economic and environmental consequences. Also in the crosshairs of terrorists saboteurs are the country’s communication centers and banking systems, which are essential to domestic and international commerce. But by far, the most dangerous, vulnerable and significant targets are the 104 nuclear power plants in the United States.

While these plants are said to be secure, too much evidence suggests otherwise.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission administers a number of supervisory programs to ensure security, chief among them being an Operational Safeguards Response Evaluation inspection program.

Under the OSRE routine, a nuclear plant is warned that a simulated sabotage effort will be made against their installation by a team of would-be saboteurs in a force-on-force exercise. These teams are composed of both NRC and private contractor personnel under the direction of a David Orrik, a retired Navy SEAL.

In approximately half of recent tests, the intruders succeeded in defeating the security measures, even reaching the central control room on occasion. The NRC downplays these security failures by claiming that they always lead to positive improvements and overall security is adequate. Indeed, so sanguine are NRC officials that they are starting a pilot program to allow private reactor operators to conduct their own security evaluations. Since when have private companies voluntarily disclosed security shortcomings and made costly improvements to their security systems and personnel training?

Compare this gentlemanly security program with the fierce determination of a trained team of terrorists attacking a reactor without warning and taking it over long enough to disable the safety controls. At that point, a major Chernoble-syle disaster would be all but assured.

Now that the initial shock and sadness of Tuesday’s horror have given way to anger, many members of Congress are calling for aggressive military action directed against not only the responsible terrorist organization but against the nation providing them shelter and support. Though popular here at home, such action will not provide any protection against further terrorist actions. If anything, it may well intensify the cycle of attack and reprisal.

Whatever action is finally taken, the first objective should be to protect American citizens in the United States. But terrorists are not single minded nor stupid. Seeing a major security effort in process at the airports, they will simply look elsewhere for vulnerable targets — like the country’s nuclear power plants. These need protection — not by their owners but by government forces.

The sad truth is we cannot guard everything in America all the time against terrorist attack. The only realistic hope to reduce the danger of future attacks lies not in violent reprisals by American forces, but in positive preventive programs, taken in concert with other nations to attack the root causes of terrorism by political and economic means.

Only by alleviating abject poverty and hopelessness in the poorest nations in the world can we eliminate the spirit that breeds terrorists — that sense that even death is preferable to life under unbearable conditions. This will not be an easy or inexpensive challenge. But it is far less costly than the perpetual cycle of attack and reprisal and with targets like nuclear reactors to aim at.

Carroll, a retired rear admiral, served as director of U. S. military operations in Europe and the Middle East.

Dick Chapman
Toronto Sun
September 18, 2001

The Canadian military should protect all nuclear power plants in this country 24 hours a day because of vulnerability to World Trade Center-type terrorism, says Energy Probe.

The Toronto-based watchdog group has asked Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, as well as Canada’s defence minister and solicitor-general, that nuclear power plants be protected around-the-clock from terrorist attacks.

“We’ve asked the Canadian military be deployed to protect the stations,” Energy Probe’s Tom Adams said yesterday.

Adams said a kamikaze-style terrorist attack on a Canadian nuclear reactor could spark an uncontrollable meltdown.

Adams said he doesn’t doubt terrorists could figure out how best to wreak massive destruction at a Canadian nuke plant – by crippling the cooling systems that jointly service four reactors at each station.

“We just have to make the assumption they know where the cooling pumps are, because it’s public knowledge,” Adams said. “If we could figure this stuff out, somebody who meant to do harm could figure it out.”

Ontario Power Generation, which operates the nuclear generating stations, would not comment on Energy Probe’s claims. OPG’s John Earl reiterated that “appropriate additional security measures” have been taken.

International intelligence analyst John Thompson said yesterday any past threat assessment of nuclear plants is “outdated.”

“The United States is deploying 50,000 troops to protect its infrastructure,” he said. “Canada should be doing the same thing.”