By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
The UC-operated Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is one of
several U.S. nuclear energy laboratories under fire from government
officials and watchdog groups for inadequate security against a
possible terrorist attack.
Security officers at the laboratories are poorly trained and
ill-equipped against a coordinated attack on the facilities, said
Congressman Ed Markey, D-Mass., citing classified documents.
“Security at these facilities is really an afterthought,
whereas it should be on top of the agenda, especially after Sept.
11,” said Israel Klein, a spokesman for Markey.
But no such security deficiencies exist, university officials
said.
“All three (UC energy laboratories) are well-defended by
professional security forces that are constantly trained and
tested,” said UC spokesman Jeff Garberson.
In addition to the Bay Area-based LLNL, the university is
contracted with the federal government to run energy laboratories
in Berkeley and in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The concern about Livermore stems from the fact that it houses
weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, which could be used to fashion
a crude nuclear bomb, Markey said.
Issues raised include officers’ inability to prevent an
attack on the facilities. Markey referred to mock terrorist
exercises in which Navy SEALs penetrated lab defenses to obtain
nuclear materials and even assembled a nuclear device.
Klein declined to comment on the laboratories participating in
the exercises, but The Washington Post reported on Jan. 23 that the
Los Alamos and Rocky Flats facility in Denver were involved.
John Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, said Markey’s claims were based on outdated
data.
“Such unfounded allegations are a disservice to the
communities that are home to our national defense
facilities,” Gordon said in a statement.
Laboratory officials emphasized that security officers are
evaluated on a continual basis.
“Security here is as good as it gets anywhere,” said
LLNL security spokesman David Schwoegler. “Our special
response team is trained to federal standards and must re-qualify
every six weeks.”
The lab is in daily contact with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Schwoegler said.
All of the UC laboratories are federally audited to test for
security weaknesses, Garberson said.
“It’s not perfect, but a system is in place to keep
testing and improving it,” he said.
Debate over the facilities’ protection resulted in part
from a lawsuit two former security officers at LLNL filed against
the UC and DOE on Jan. 14.
Charles Quinones and Matthew Zipoli said they were terminated
from their posts after raising security concerns to the LLNL
administration, specifically the Office of Inspector General.
Quinones and Zipoli were the president and vice president,
respectively, of the Security Police Officers’ Association,
an officer union at the laboratory. They also served on the
laboratory’s special response team.
Garberson said Quinones and Zipoli were fired for instigating a
sickout of officers on Aug. 6, 2001, the anniversary of the day
when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima,
Japan.
But representatives for the two officers said their concerns
sparked an investigation by the OIG, who corroborated the security
shortfalls. The results of this investigation are classified.
Laboratory management knew of their role in raising concerns and
terminated them, said Tom Carpenter, spokesman for the Government
Accountability Project who filed the suits on Quinones’ and
Zipoli’s behalf.
“Instead of being thanked, they were fired,”
Carpenter said.
“It’s quite unlikely that other officers will come
forward with other deficiencies, knowing this is what waits for
them,” he added.