Security at U.S. nuclear sites criticized

Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002 | 11:17 a.m.

The Energy Department has cut the number of armed guards at the Nevada Test Site by almost 60 percent in the past decade and has done the same at other nuclear facilities, weakening security of nuclear materials, a Massachusetts congressman said Monday.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., released a 22-page report showing that between 1992 and 2001 the Energy Department trimmed the number of armed guards at the Test Site from 276 to 115 -- a 58 percent drop -- and the number of unarmed officers from 17 to four.

"The Department of Energy, by its own admission, does not have adequate resources to provide security at these facilities," Markey said.

Markey said he was concerned with an overall 40 percent drop in security forces at Energy Department facilities nationwide since 1992, especially given the dangers illustrated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

The Energy Department said it took 90 minutes after the terrorist attacks to place all nuclear weapons across the country in safe havens.

The congressman said he fears that terrorists could build a dirty bomb at a nuclear weapons site such as Rocky Flats, near Denver, or steal materials to make a bomb elsewhere.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham reassured Markey in a May 3 letter that guards are being hired at a record pace since Sept. 11, which is not reflected in the congressman's study.

"Let me assure you that I consider this department's responsibilities to national security to be my number one priority," Abraham wrote.

Security was scaled back as facilities shut down after the Cold War, but hundreds of guards have been hired since Sept. 11, Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said.

"Any implication that nothing has changed in our security since Sept. 11 is patently ridiculous," Wilkes said.

The total number of Test Site guards dropped 59 percent overall, said the report, titled "The Sum of All Fears: Security Gaps at Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Weapons Facilities."

The Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was the outdoor laboratory for U.S. nuclear weapons experiments from 1951 until 1992. Since the 1970s it has become a storage site for low-level radioactive waste from nuclear defense activities around the country. Yucca Mountain, on its western edge, has been approved by President Bush and Congress as the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository.

Since 1998 the Test Site has conducted 17 subcritical experiments underground using radioactive materials that are blasted by high explosives, but do not create a nuclear chain reaction.

An assessment of the Energy Department's site at the Tonopah Test Range in central Nevada was not fully completed, the report said. However, of a total of 85 armed guards at the range in 1992, 50 remained on duty in 2001.

In addition the report said that the Energy Department's Office of Transportation Safeguards, which moves weapons-grade uranium and plutonium between sites, failed six of seven force-on-force exercises in December 1998. Energy Department officials replied that follow-up exercises in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 "indicate that OTS is operating at low risk."

A total of 574 shipments of special nuclear materials has occurred since January 1999.

While the security shortage began during the Clinton administration, after the Cold War ended, Markey criticized Bush for failing to increase funding since Sept. 11.

"Incredibly, the White House has twice refused to fund security activities described by the secretary of energy as 'urgent security needs,' " Markey said.

In March the Energy Department twice asked the Bush administration for $379 million in emergency security funding.

"The department's remaining safeguards and security budgets are not sufficient to implement the security posture requirements that appropriately respond to the Sept. 11 attacks," Energy Department budget officer Bruce Carnes wrote in a letter to administration budget officials.

Although the administration requested just $26.7 million for this purpose, Congress appropriated $360 million. However, Bush decided last week to spend only the roughly $26 million initially sought.

Amy Call, spokeswoman of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the National Nuclear Security Administration had already received $653 million to protect nuclear facilities and shipments in the current year, a sharp increase from the $411 million spent on security throughout the Energy Department last year.

Wilkes said the agency is confident that its nuclear weapons facilities are secure.

"Do we want more money? Sure. Could we use it? Sure. Who couldn't? But are things any less safe without more money? Certainly not," he said.

Markey said he plans to try to add $300 million to the energy and water appropriations bill when Congress returns in September.

Markey's report was based on more than 200 pages of documents the congressman requested from the Energy Department. Much of the material relating to security was kept secret and could not be released. The security cuts were included in unclassified materials.

In the report the Energy Department also admitted that two Yemeni citizens who participated in an anti-terrorism training program disappeared from Los Alamos, N.M., after the program ended. The Energy Department said it had called in the FBI, but there was no resolution of the disappearance.

Markey also said records showed computer hackers have broken into Energy Department computers numerous times since 1999. The breaches varied in their severity, but some were "root-level" compromises, which meant the hacker had enough access that a virus could be installed.

Wilkes said the hacking was not a coordinated effort. He said no classified or sensitive information was compromised.

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