ＥＥＥ会議（Re:米国の原子力発電所の安全保障対策：ＧＡＯ報告書： Ｉｎｄｉａn Ｐｏｉｎｔ原発「事件」）.........2003.10.1

米国では９．１１事件以後原子力発電所の安全(safety)より安全保障(security)によ
り多くの関心が払われるようになっているようですが、先週公表された議会の会計検
査院(GAO)の報告書では、原子力規制委員会(NRC)はこの点で十分監督責任を果たして
いないとして厳しく批判しています(9/27のメールご参照）。　とくにニューヨーク
近郊のIndian Point原発では、昨年７月、２号機の監視員が日中３０分くらい居眠り
をするという「事件」が起こったものの、ＮＲＣは、その時間帯にテロ攻撃がなかっ
たから問題ない、また同一の監視員が１年に２回以上居眠りをしたということもな
かった、としてこの事件を不問に付したが、このように実害が生じなければ問題なし
とするNRCの態度は問題だとGAOの専門家は批判している由。　なお、このGAO報告書
は、反原発・核不拡散論者として知られるEdward Markey下院議員(民主党、マサ
チューセッツ州選出）らの要求で公表されたもの。　詳細は次のNew York Times記事
でどうぞ。
--KK

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Nuclear Regulatory Agency Lax on Reactor Security, Congressional Audit Finds
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 　

When two Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials found a security guard
asleep at his post at the Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor last year, the
agency
decided not to issue a notice of violation because there was no terrorist
attack on the plant during the half-hour or so that the guard was sleeping,
a Congressional audit has found.

The incident was included in a report issued late Wednesday that was broadly
critical of the commission's assessments of reactor security, but the
reactor was not identified. People with knowledge of the audit, which was
done by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress,
confirmed on Friday that the incident occurred at Indian Point 2, in
Buchanan, N.Y., about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, on July 29, 2002.

The auditors said that nationwide, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tended
not to issue formal citations and to minimize the significance of problems
it found if the problems did not cause actual damage. Commission inspectors
treated the Indian Point incident as a "non-cited violation" because it did
not affect plant security, according to a report issued by the commission
that describes an inspection at the plant. The report also says the
commission did not treat the incident more seriously because no guards had
been found sleeping "more than twice during the past year."

The report described the guard as "inattentive to duty," a term that the
agency often uses in its reports. Agency officials say they cannot prove
that an individual is asleep, even one who is not moving and whose eyes are
closed.

The commission has tried to reduce sleeping on the job at nuclear plants by
limiting how much overtime a plant operator can order a guard to perform.

"The security response officer's failure to meet specific conditions of the
Indian Point 2 Physical Security Plan, relative to assuring that armed
responders will be available on site at all times for response to safeguards
events, constitutes a performance deficiency," the inspection report said.
"The cause of this event was reasonably within Entergy's ability to foresee
and correct; and should have been prevented." Entergy Corporation bought
Indian Point 2 from Consolidated Edison and the companion reactor, Indian
Point 3, from the New York Power Authority.

But the incident had "low safety significance" because "no actual intrusion
occurred," the inspection report said.

The General Accounting Office audit, which examined the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's monitoring of reactors' security nationwide, contained several
other critical findings, including that the "attackers" used in security
drills lack adequate training and the weapons that simulate those terrorists
would use, and that the defenders are unrealistically overstaffed. During
drills, the commission allows the use of off-duty guards, guards from other
plants and police officers, all of whom have defensive training.

That issue has arisen at Indian Point, which held a "force-on-force" drill
in midsummer. This month, the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit
group here that has studied and reported extensively on reactor security,
released a report based in part on interviews with guards at Indian Point.
The report complained that in the drill this summer, the attackers crossed
open terrain in broad daylight, something terrorists would not do.

But the director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's office of nuclear
security and incident response, Roy P. Zimmerman, said the commission
"brings in experts" to train those people posing as attackers. He would not
say whether these experts were from the armed forces or elsewhere. In the
1980's, the commission used Green Berets to assess plant security.

The General Accounting Office also said that auditors who reviewed 80
commission reports of force-on-force exercises found that at 12 plants, the
operators added security guards, and at 35, guards got extra training. Most
plants also took special precautions before the drills.

"It's virtually cheating when you do that," said Peter Stockton, a senior
investigator with the Project on Government Oversight and a former security
adviser to the federal energy secretary.

Mr. Zimmerman said the commission expected plants that made such
improvements to do so permanently. But the General Accounting Office report
said that a regulatory commission official, whom it did not identify, said
the agency could require the plants to have on duty only the number of
guards specified in their security plans, and that if they added guards
before a drill and removed them later, the agency "could not hold a licensee
accountable for ramping down" after the exercise.

Mr. Zimmerman said that in the case of the sleeping guard, even if the
commission did not issue a formal violation, "it still requires that
corrective action be taken."

"It sounds as if the inspection process looked at the bigger picture of
whether this was indicative of a more chronic situation," he said, "or
whether it appeared to be isolated in nature, in order to be able to assign
the appropriate safety context to the occurrence."

However, the General Accounting Office report said the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's findings that security was adequate might be wrong in some
cases because violations were not always pursued.

In its report, which was requested by Representatives Edward J. Markey of
Massachusetts and John D. Dingell of Michigan, both Democrats, the
accounting office did not reach a conclusion about the adequacy of security
at Indian Point or any other plant.

But it listed other cases, in which the plants were not identified, where
the commission staff failed to follow up. In one, according to the
accounting office, the commission found that tamper alarms on a door in a
sensitive area had been disabled, and "the only compensatory measure
implemented was to have a guard check the location once during each 12-hour
shift."