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82-Year-Old Nun Breaks Into Nuclear Facility, Contractors Blamed
Lasrick writes "Private security contractors strike again, this time at the Y-12 National Security Complex. A nun, a gardener, and a housepainter cut through three security fences to find themselves 20 feet away from highly dangerous nuclear material. And of course, only one guard has been fired (the one who arguably acted the bravest and did the right thing). A Department of Energy report (PDF) on the incident found 'troubling displays of ineptitude in responding to alarms, failures to maintain critical 2
security equipment, over reliance on compensatory measures, misunderstanding of security protocols, poor communications, and weaknesses in contract and resource management.' The contractors have been put on notice, (PDF), but they still have the contracts."
Are you implying that if the security were nationalized (ala TSA) that such ineptitude would not exist?
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Sounds like the start of a joke, "A nun, a gardener, and a house painter go into a nuclear facility..."
Why in the name of Oppenheimer did they fire the one guy who actually did his job, when everyone above and around him appeared to fail pretty seriously at theirs?
Admittedly, he didn't shoot anyone, which he was apparently entitled to do, but at the same time, he actually stopped any further mischief and was the only person (aside from the protesters) who didn't embarrass the whole nation.
It's a pity Joseph Heller isn't around to write his life story or something.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
I blame Apple maps.
I know, dead horse is dead.
The fact that you anticipated the accusation that you are new here, by admitting that you are new here, suggests that you are not new here.
Why in the name of Oppenheimer did they fire the one guy who actually did his job, when everyone above and around him appeared to fail pretty seriously at theirs?
If he's the only person doing his job then that means his superiors that fired him also were not doing their job correctly -- their correct job being to fire the people who had failed through inaction. So, in order to maintain his status of being the only person who did his job, he would have to be fired otherwise his superiors might be misconstrued as doing their job correctly. This is all very simple Dilbert 101.
My work here is dung.
For a nun, that's a bad habit.
That's why the housepainter gave her a new coat.
The gardener was just there as a hedge.
(Comedy night at the Security Theater)
And this is why I heavily oppose leaving matters of security, safety, or health completely in the hands of one or more private companies. These three areas are rarely ever cost-effective and they're not meant to be. The reason we have these services in the first place is because people feel that they are valuable to the well-being of individuals as well as society as a whole, not because there is necessarily an economic benefit. I'm not opposed to having private companies involved in these three areas, but I believe there needs to be strict standards on the quality of service they provide, strong government oversight to make sure they're operating up to those standards, and repercussions for failing to meet the standards.
It doesn't sound as sensational after reading TFA.
Are you implying that if the security were nationalized (ala TSA) that such ineptitude would not exist?
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Probably has to do with this quote and link from the article:
The obvious problems that result from so much contractor freedom are made clear by the recent inspector general report, which determined that this lack of federal oversight at least partially contributed to the success of the break-in PDF: "When questioned as to why action was not taken to address growing maintenance backlogs, Federal officials told us that with the advent of NNSA's contractor governance system (Contractor Assurance System), they could no longer intervene." In light of these findings, the inspector general had serious questions about the Energy Department's overall approach and determined that "current initiatives to reduce Federal oversight of the nuclear weapons complex, especially as they relate to security functions, need to be carefully considered."
There are many forms of nationalized security: some very bad (TSA) and some very good (National Guard). Private industry will save you money and, when pitted against each other in true capitalism form, they will cut corners to win contracts. Somethings should have security independent of how the economy is doing or how low some no talent ass clown is willing to bid on a contract.
My work here is dung.
Friend of a friend was a hacker who got that dream job: Security compliance at the Texas nuclear plants.
After he:
1) Fooled them into letting him in by carrying a box and asking them to hold the door.
2) Punched into a secure room by going through two sheets of sheetrock.
3) Punched into a "steel clad" area by showing the "steel" was easily cut with a hacksaw.
4) climbed out of the "man trap" within 30 seconds of being "trapped"
5) fooled employees into giving various passwords and access to secure areas..
and a half dozen other weaknesses...
They posted his PICTURE and told employees to be sure to keep an eye out for the security compliance guy.
They didn't really want to fix the problems.
Nuke plants are apparently mostly security through obscurity and bluffing.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Speaking as a former U.S. Marine *and* as a current contractor working in and around nuclear power facilities, I sincerely hope you're just joking. The idea that you consider Marines "trigger happy" is highly offensive. We're trained very rigorously to *not* be trigger happy in the first place. We're not some bloodthirsty gang out to slaughter women and babies for the fun of it. If you've never served then I suppose it seems funny as hell to pretend that we are, but any professional Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman will tell you we do our damndest not to hurt innocents, even the point of getting maimed for life or killed in the process. Please try to show a little respect for that. And no, we're not victims looking for pity. Every one of us volunteered knowing what we were getting into.
Regarding the security at a nuclear facility, I've seen Y-12. The guards are armed but the rules are pretty strict about shooting at stuff. You can be quick to shoot and more likely than not you'll make the evening news killing some teens playing a prank. Cue the pacifists, the anti-nuke protesters, the anti-military groups, and every other bleeding heart group out there for a PR debacle in progress. Or you don't shoot on sight and you end up with nuns, gardeners, and what-have-you painting bible verses on your walls. Personally, I'd rather have a red face for the activists showing off than have to live with killing civilians by mistake.
Yes, the cameras being down is pretty pathetic. However, cutting through a few fences and banging on walls is a *LONG* way from stealing something like highly-enriched uranium. Last week I was walking 20 feet away from a nuclear reactor containment building, but there's no way in hell I could've gotten into it and I'm *authorized* to be on the site in the first place. Any bomb that's man-portable would have a hard time breaching any of these structures containing nuclear material. And if the goal was to steal a usable amount of nuclear material, any terrorist would have a helluva time getting away with stuff because it's heavy, dangerous, and stored in some pretty amazing containers.
If you want to throw stones, find out who is responsible for the security equipment budget at these sites and why those cameras were down for six months. Of course, what you might find is the cameras were down because getting a *permit* to get work done at a nuclear site is beyond ridiculous. I'm being quoted a 6-12 month permitting period just to get a breaker panel put in for network expansion. That's 6-12 months of waiting on paperwork so a job that will take 1-2 days can get done. Yes, it's that bad, so maybe the cameras being down wasn't really the fault of the security group.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The minimum method used is for handling machining wastes. There, supposedly, enriched materials capable of even moderate reaction are normally stored in containers no larger than 1 gallon paint cans, which are filled to very low capacities measured by weight (typically meaning they are each less than 5% full by volume), and then placed on a marked grid on a reinforced concrete floor, in such a way that there is a reliable safe minimum distance between them. People will supposedly be fired for letting cans get too close, as measured at ranges that are still way above actual risk. Materials that can oxidize spontaniously may be stored under oil or in inert atmospheres or both, as seems most prudent. Various barriers then further subdivide the marked grid, etc. All that's from public documentaries and similar sources.
For actual nuclear reactions, we're generally talking about densities where you couldn't even pour all the material in all the cans in a single building together to get a reaction that could even just possibly generate enough neutron flux to generate enough heat that the materials could even just possibly melt and become concentrated enough to produce a level of neutron emission that would actually be dangerous to the immediate area adjacent to the building, or tighter standards.
Chemical reactions, alas, are another story. Opening a single can of some of these substances, particularly if you could get it into an area with moist air or bring it into contact with something such as burning gasoline at the time, might be very lethal to the person opening it - there'd be a flash (chemical rapid oxidation, not nuclear) and the person would likely breathe in a lethal dose of a radioactive heavy metal oxide vapor - even there, persons who approached a few moments after the can was opened, say to render assistance to the idiot, would be in only moderate danger of a radiation dose health risk and if they suited up properly before cleaning up would be at very low risk. Again, that's theory - the basic procedues were worked out soon after the Daghlian and Slotin criticality accidents at Los Alamos in the 40's, they were refined after two non-lethal and mostly not even very injurious accidents in the 1958-59 period at Y-12, and they've been followed enough that there haven't been any more like those.
In 2003, Y-12 had an accident involving depleted Uranium buring chemically in a hotbox experiment after Calcium reacted with water triggering enough heat to touch off the DU. That resulted in three employees getting heavy metal exposures considered unsafe, but not likely to cause serious long term health consequences. (That's a mixed reliability claim - there's some argument about just how much of a health hazard breathing or ingesting Depleted uranium is, and it's quite possible the safety guidelines for it will be toughened up further) This was the only nuclear related accident at Y-12 reported under the current management. Note that it's not technically a radiation accident, as DU just basically is emitting less than naturally occuring Uranium, and bringing more of it together, heating it, and so on doesn't cause it to emit more. If it makes a difference, it happened as part of an experimental lab setup, not the process plant.
For Plutonium wastes, the amounts are supposed to be kept low enough that the potential heat can't trigger any sort of phase change, not just melting to an actually more ductile or semi-liquid state. It's the stuff actually 'stored' inside an H-bomb being refurbished that has real potential (although supposedly, the rest of the bomb and the Plutonium pit don't EVER enter the continental US still assembled - so if that's true, we are talking about parts of bombs, not complete bombs). So the question is just what was in the buildings the nun and her chums approached? Was it trimmed off milling wast
Who is John Cabal?
Nun shall pass!