Homeland Security Says 7,000 Chemical Sites At High Risk of Terrorist Attack
June 20, 2008
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More than 7,000 out of 32,000 facilities storing chemicals across the U.S. are at serious risk of a terrorist attack and need to review the vulnerabilities of their security.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released these findings on Friday and gave the businesses 90 days to finish the security inspection before the agency itself conducts its own security assessments of the sites.
The review is part of DHS’s plan to deter terrorists from turning the facilities into large bombs like what al Qaeda did on 9/11. The department will help the sites develop stronger security plans, ensure compliance with the plans and penalize those that fail to comply.
The 7,000 facilities, which were not identified for security reasons, include chemical plants, hospitals, colleges and universities, oil and natural gas production and storage facilities, and food and agricultural processing and distribution centers near densely populated areas, but exclude nuclear plants and water treatment facilities.
Experts long have worried that terrorists could attack chemical facilities near large cities, in essence turning them into large bombs. Experts say it is a hallmark of al Qaeda, in particular, to leverage a target nation’s technological or industrial strength against it, as terrorists did in the September 11 terrorist attacks
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From CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/20/terror.risk/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
The DHS said Friday that the list is the first step in its plan to reduce the consequences of an attack.
It first compiled a list of approximately 320 “chemicals of interest” and determined what amounts of each chemical should raise concerns, Stephan said.
Then came the consequence analysis, which examined where a facility was and the expected impact of a chemical release or an explosion, Stephan said.
“We looked at how the chemicals were packaged for storage, how they were containerized for shipment,” he said. “Could the chemicals be taken off-site by one person with relatively little effort, or would they require a crane or some type of giant vehicular conveyance?”
The 7,000 facilities will have 90 days to conduct “site-specific” assessments of security vulnerabilities.
In the coming months, the department will conduct additional assessments, divide the facilities into four tiers and help the plants develop security plans. First will be Tier 1, consisting of plants with the biggest potential for disaster, Stephan said. It will then check to ensure that they are complying with the security plans, he said.
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That Bob Stephan from DHS has got some wicked sense of humor! CNN quotes him saying DHS is concerned about how in 7000 chemical facilities that are prime targets because of their ultra-hazardous chemicals on site: “We looked at how the chemicals were packaged for storage, how they were containerized for shipment. Could the chemicals be taken off-site by one person with relatively little effort, or would they require a crane or some type of giant vehicular conveyance?”
Duh, Bob – the “giant vehicular conveyance” already being used for this purpose over 110,000 times a year is the standard 90-ton railroad tank car. The Bush Administration averts its eyes while railroads daily route poison gas and explosive chemical cargoes “with relatively little effort” from the engineer, and with absolutely no effective security, through all our 60 major US target cities. Thus pre-positioning them for use whenever the terrorists cells complete their usual thorough 7-year research efforts to mount a coordinated series of “spectacular” attacks like the second World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 9/11/01.
The transporters are powerful corporations with shadowy acronyms like CSXT and BNSF. How long do you think this ludicrous vulnerability would last, if instead of CSXT, it were “Chalabi Sinbad X Transportation” corporation discovered delivering cargoes that the federal regulators call “potential weapons of mass destruction” into our cities? [Pardon my national origin profiling, but you get the point.] And most knowledgeable officials all agree: “Let us not alarm the public” by informing them of what real risks they are being exposed to.
Many of these clearly-placarded cargoes also display colorful graffiti on the tank car sides to virtually shout out the lack of security, documented in 25 major media reports. Ten major cities and two states since 9/11 have been introducing new laws to protectively re-route the most dangerous through cargoes away from the cities onto available non-target routes. But the newly-promulgated Bush Administration pretense of federal rail routing regulation is brazenly designed to preempt these actions, and typically leaves the whole decision for WMD hazmat routing in the hands of the railroads, in utter secrecy and with no meaningful inputs from state and local officials. Feel safer?