nuclear-news

Activist nun has highlighted poor security at USA nuclear bomb plant

“Troubling ineptitude” in security at nuclear bomb plant  By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON | Fri Aug 31, 2012   (Reuters) – Guards at a government plant for storing weapons-grade uranium failed to spot activists, including an 82-year-old nun, who cut through its fences until they walked up to an officer’s car and surrendered, an official report said on Friday.

The report from the Energy Department’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, criticized multiple failures of sophisticated security systems and “troubling displays of ineptitude” at the Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in July.

Three anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, were not initially spotted or detained as they cut through three perimeter fences on July 28.

They painted slogans and threw what they said was human blood on the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key component of nuclear bombs, is stored…. Top nuclear officials from the Energy Department will face scrutiny over the security breach from lawmakers on the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee on September …. Friedman’s report said the U.S. government had budgeted about $150 million in taxpayer funds for security at the Y-12 plant for fiscal 2012, yet the officer responding to the alarm did not notice the trespassers until they walked up to his car and “surrendered.”… http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/us-usa-security-nuclear-idUSBRE87U0WA20120831

September 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA