Mon, Nov 01, 2004
Wants AAA, Combat Patrols -- SOMETHING -- Done About Indian
Point
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the
US Senator gunned down in Los Angeles during a presidential
campaign stop in 1968, says the Bush administration lied when it
claimed to be doing everything it could be doing to "harden
terrorist targets."
In an editorial published in New York Newsday, Kennedy, a lawyer
specializing in the environment, is most concerned about the
vulnerability of the Indian Point nuclear power station, just 24
miles from the heart of New York City.
Decrying regulation-by-industry, Kennedy wrote in his Op-Ed
piece for Newsday:
...Indian Point still lacks robust security and defense
mechanisms to thwart a terrorist attack: There is no no-fly zone.
No combat patrols. No anti-aircraft defense. No containment
structure over the spent fuel pools. And it has still not been
proven that the containment domes over the reactors could withstand
the impact of a large airplane or smaller plane loaded with
explosives. In fact, in 1982 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
own Atomic Safety and Licensing Board determined that reactor
owners "are not required to design against such things... as
kamikaze dives by large airplanes. Reactors could not be
effectively protected against such attacks without turning them
into virtually impregnable fortresses at much higher cost." In a
post-9/11 world, this is a serious problem that should be addressed
by President Bush, the Department of Homeland Security and the
NRC.
Internal reports by Entergy, which owns and operates Indian
Point, show that the plant's private security force is poorly
armed, poorly trained and badly demoralized. The GAO found that the
federal government deliberately stages softball mock attacks of the
facilities to bamboozle the public into believing that Indian
Point's anemic defenses are adequate. The Bush administration has
resisted efforts by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to federalize plant
security.
Kennedy's editorial goes on to suggest that
Democrat-for-President John Kerry would address these issues if he
gains the White House.
AOPA executives say they're studying Kennedy's argument and
expect to have a response later in the week.
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