Indian Pt. Report Said to Overstate Terrorism Risk
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
The New York Times
February 13, 2003

The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday criticized a state-commissioned report on emergency planning at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County for possibly giving "undue weight" to the impact of a terrorist attack.

In a letter to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Richard A. Meserve, the chairman of the commission, which oversees nuclear plants, said it would await a report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, due later this month, before passing judgment on how well the emergency plan could cope with a disaster.

But Mr. Meserve, whose commission has the authority to decide whether the plant stays open, nevertheless offered its most extensive remarks on the state report in his six-paragraph letter, which answered Mrs. Clinton's request for comment on the state report.

Mr. Meserve focused on the plant's security and the potential effect of terrorism, finding fault with the draft report last month by James Lee Witt, a former director of FEMA. Mr. Witt's report said the emergency plan, which includes steps for evacuating people within a 10-mile radius of the plant, in Buchanan, N.Y., could not protect the public from a large, fast release of radiation, as from a terrorist attack.

"While we appreciate and recognize the effort that went into the draft report, we believe the draft report appears to give undue weight to the impact of potential acts of terrorism on emergency planning and terrorism," Mr. Meserve wrote, hours before meeting Mrs. Clinton and other members of New York's Congressional delegation.

"Emergency preparedness programs are designed to cope with a spectrum of accidents, including those involving rapid, large releases of radioactivity," Mr. Meserve said, echoing a point made by the Entergy Corporation, which owns the plant 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan.

Mr. Meserve went on to say that nuclear plants across the country for years have been required to guard themselves against well-armed attackers and "numerous additional steps have been taken since September 2001 to thwart terrorist acts."

Mr. Witt, whose firm plans to release a final version of the report by March 1, declined to comment. Spokesmen for Gov. George E. Pataki, who commissioned the report in response to rising anxiety over the plant, did not answer requests for comment, and a spokesman for Mr. Meserve said he would not comment beyond the statements in his letter.

Members of Congress who met with Mr. Meserve bristled at what they saw as a defense of the plant and the plan.
Representative Eliot L. Engel, the Westchester Democrat who arranged the meeting with Mr. Meserve, called Mr. Meserve's position absurd.

"For him to sort of disregard terrorism or put it in place with everything else is absolutely absurd," Mr. Engel said, noting that the Witt report had criticized the standards that the N.R.C. and FEMA use to assess emergency plans.

"I think after Sept. 11 the equation changed," Mr. Engel said. "For them to talk about a terrorist attacking having no difference from any other disaster on its own is just plain silly. It defies common sense."

Representative Sue Kelly, a Republican from Katonah whose district includes the plant, said after her own meeting with Mr. Meserve yesterday, "If we have learned anything since Sept. 11, it is to expect the unexpected. The N.R.C. needs to examine the unique consequences of a terrorist scenario, not ignore it or brush it off."

Mrs. Kelly sought and won a Congressional hearing on the emergency plan to be held this month or next.

Mrs. Clinton said "there is a significant difference between an accident and a terrorist attack" and that Mr. Meserve had failed to recognize that.

The Witt report said the N.R.C. and FEMA standards that guide the emergency plan, prepared by the state and localities in conjunction with the plant owner, do not adequately address the "unique consequences of a terrorist attack."

Mr. Witt suggested, among other things, that volunteer emergency workers might not respond, roads might be clogged by residents dashing to get away and the plant's computer technology might fail to predict where the radiation was headed.

Entergy officials have disputed those points and say the emergency plan does adequately address how to respond to a large release of radiation, though company disaster specialists say they cannot conceive of a rapid release of large amounts of radiation that would render the emergency plans unworkable.

The N.R.C. did not file a formal response to Mr. Witt's consulting firm, which until Feb. 7 had asked for comments from the public as it prepared a final version of the report to be released this month or next.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission, said it did not file a response because "in our view we have been engaged in trying to improve emergency planning for Indian Point with the state, the counties and the local communities for a long time and will continue to do that."

Mr. Meserve's letter and meeting came on a day when opponents of the plant demonstrated outside FEMA's Manhattan office to press the agency to reject the emergency plan for the plant.

Such a move could lead the N.R.C. to pull the plant's operating license, which requires a FEMA-approved emergency plan. The commission has never closed a plant over emergency planning problems.

BACK TO TOP