News Archive 2004

Operator of Nuclear Plant Readying Strike Substitutes
Kirk Semple
The New York Times
September 18, 2004

WHITE PLAINS, Sept. 17 - The operator of the Indian Point nuclear power plant is training a replacement force to take over security should the regular guards go on strike when their contract expires on Oct. 2, officials said this week.

Critics of the plant, however, said they doubted that a team of recruits could be prepared in time to protect the plant against attacks or intrusions.

"When you're talking about nuclear security going to a scab force, it's simply unacceptable," said Alex Matthiessen, the executive director of Riverkeeper, an environmental group that has sought to shut down Indian Point's two reactors. "You're not talking about a bunch of Wal-Marts. You can't be fooling around with the quality of the guards."

Spokesmen for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the plant's operator, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which began training the replacement guards in August, said that the replacement force would be prepared to operate at federally mandated levels of proficiency on a par with the regular force.

"They will be required to carry out the security programs to the same degree as the current security force and will be required to execute to the ability of the current security force," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission, which oversees the nuclear industry. He said he was unable to find any record of a strike of security guards at a nuclear power plant in the United States.

An official of Teamsters Local 456, which represents the plant's security workers, said the regular force numbered about 150. Officials from Entergy and the commission declined to reveal the size of the replacement force.

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, said, "It wouldn't be a one-to-one replacement, but it would clearly be a replacement that would meet our security obligations and our expectations and the regulatory requirements."

He said the substitutes were being provided by SOS Security Inc. of Parsippany, N.J.

The commission has been reviewing Indian Point's strike contingency plan, and four permanent on-site inspectors and the commission's security experts will continue to assess Entergy's strike preparations, Mr. Sheehan said. "The expectations are that they will conform with all our requirements," he said.

In the event of a walkout, he said, plant managers would remain in their jobs and National Guard troops and state police officers stationed there would also remain on duty. The commission, he added, would continue to monitor security operations around the clock for several days after the strike begins and would thereafter conduct what he called "periodic checks" with an expanded crew of inspectors.

Critics of Indian Point questioned the ability of Entergy to assemble and prepare a sufficiently experienced replacement force by Oct. 2.

"Not to state the obvious here, but if you're a terrorist group interested in attacking a nuclear power plant, and they have the bench warmers - or worse - in there, that makes the plant a more vulnerable target," Mr. Matthiessen said.

Julie Edwards, a spokeswoman for Representative Nita M. Lowey, a Westchester Democrat whose district includes parts of the plant's evacuation zone, an area within a 10-mile radius of the plant, said the congresswoman "has long had concerns with the ongoing inability to maintain a work force and to operate the plant at the security level required at the facility.'' Ms. Edwards added that the information "only adds to her belief that this facility should be decommissioned."

Mr. Steets, however, said that a replacement force would be adequately prepared to guard the plant. "We would only have been concerned if we didn't have enough time to train them," he said. "There's enough time, and we've been doing it."

The contract of the plant's regular security force expires at midnight on Oct. 2. The union's membership overwhelmingly voted down a contract proposal earlier this month that would have extended the current contract by two years. John Cuite, the assistant trustee of Local 456 and a union negotiator, said negotiations were expected to resume next week.

Officials from the union and Entergy declined to discuss specifics of the latest contract offer, but Mr. Steets said that the union membership had blocked the proposal mainly because it was concerned about vesting and wanted a longer deal.

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