Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- ===== "We're all downwinders!" Check out http://www.downwinders.org ______________________________ http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=091301&ID=s1022952&cat=section.regional ============================================== Hanford vulnerable to air strike Nuclear reservation with tons of plutonium on highest alert Karen Dorn Steele - Staff writer The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where four tons of highly radioactive plutonium are stored in one building, has no defense against an air assault like the one that hit the World Trade Center. Such an attack could release plutonium with disastrous results for public health, said a former U.S. Department of Energy official. Tuesday's attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., are raising new questions about the vulnerability of Northwest nuclear and chemical weapons facilities. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has told all commercial nuclear power plants and fuel facilities to go to the "highest level of security." The U.S. Department of Energy, which has jurisdiction over military reactors, took similar steps to beef up security at Hanford and nuclear facilities in Idaho. The Army has also heightened security at its arsenal of deadly nerve gas near Hermiston, Ore. The largest potential nuclear targets are Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant, where four tons of refined and scrap plutonium is stored, and the region's only nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station near Richland. During World War II's Manhattan Project, the top-secret program to develop the world's first atomic bombs, military officials located Hanford far inland to protect the project from possible Japanese attacks. But Hanford officials said Wednesday they have no way to protect the Plutonium Finishing Plant and other Hanford facilities from air attacks today. "I've been here 17 years, and in that time, Hanford has had no air protection. It used to during the early days of the Cold War," said Mike Talbot, a DOE spokesman in Richland. The Federal Aviation Administration maintains a 2,400-foot ceiling over Hanford airspace, and airplanes are not supposed to go lower, Talbot said. The PFP was the first Hanford facility this week placed on the highest security alert. Unlike the Three Mile Island reactor and many other commercial nuclear plants, Hanford's old weapons plants aren't hardened to withstand an airplane crash, said Robert Alvarez, a policy advisor to former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Alvarez helped evaluate the DOE's national emergency response plans during the Clinton administration. DOE's Talbot declined comment on what a direct airplane hit would do to the Plutonium Finishing Plant. He said he didn't know if Hanford officials had ever done a safety analysis of that possibility. With tons of refined and scrap plutonium inside the plant, a direct hit by a large airplane would cause a "catastrophic radiological event," Alvarez said. "At least a fraction of the plutonium would be oxidized and dispersed. The plume would create a severe, plutonium-laced fallout with heavy offsite depositions," Alvarez said. Plutonium-239 retains half its radioactivity for 24,000 years, and can cause cancer if inhaled. Making Hanford and other nuclear facilities invulnerable to air attack may be impossible, Alvarez said. "You'd have to establish the site as a no-fly zone, and you'd have to have the capability to knock down aircraft. To harden these facilities is probably cost-prohibitive and impossible," he said. In a terse announcement Tuesday on its Web site, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission didn't elaborate on the steps it is taking to safeguard commercial nuclear facilities, saying the details are classified. In Richland, Columbia Generating Station officials had already decided to rachet up security at the 1,130-megawatt plant before they heard from the NRC this week, said Don McManman, spokesman for plant owners Energy Northwest. A head-on hit by a large jet was not envisioned as a worst-case scenario when the nuclear plant on the Hanford nuclear reservation was designed, McManman said. Instead, engineers designed it to withstand the impact of a major tornado, he said. Even if the plant were struck by a jet, vital systems would remain intact because of the thickness of the primary and secondary containment, he said. A 20-acre protective zone around the plant is guarded by machine-gun toting guards and secured by motion detectors and concertina wire. Any decision to close airspace over the nuclear reactor would have to be made by the FAA. "Energy Northwest has no control over the skies," McManman said. Workers at the nuclear plant have stayed on the job this week, producing enough electricity to supply the city of Seattle and its suburbs. "Terrorists' true goal is to disrupt society. We have decided they won't succeed here. We'll continue to come to work and make energy for the Pacific Northwest," McManman said. After the attacks this week, the Army also increased security at its Umatilla Chemical Depot, seven miles west of Hermiston, Ore. The depot stores 3,700 tons of nerve and mustard gas -- 12 percent of the nation's original supply of chemical weapons. The gas will be destroyed in an incinerator starting in February 2003. The Army has considered a direct hit by a fuel-heavy jet in its risk analysis, said spokeswoman Mary Binder. "If we took a direct hit, there would be damage," including a possible release of gas, Binder said. But the risk analysis says the nerve agents and mustard gas would be destroyed by the high temperatures generated by burning jet fuel. "We've incorporated this possibility into our security measures and our plans for the surrounding communities," Binder said. ======================================================= __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
