Skip to main content

Security Incident at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant

By now many of you have seen the panicked headlines over at the Drudge Report concerning a security incident at the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in the nation. The following is the official statement about the incident from Arizona Public Service, the operator of the plant:
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station Security personnel detected a small, suspicious device in the bed of a contract employee’s truck this morning as part of the normal security screening of all vehicles entering the site. The contractor was attempting to enter the site through the Security check-point at the beginning of the normal day shift.

Although initial checks did not detect any explosive material on the small capped pipe, the contractor was denied access to the site and detained for further investigation, and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) was contacted. MCSO bomb squad tests later determined that the capped pipe was a credible explosive device.

As a prudent measure, the Palo Verde site was placed in a security lock-down, with no further traffic entering or exiting the site. The site also declared a Notification of Unusual Event, which is the lowest of four Emergency Plan event classifications.

“Our Security personnel acted cautiously and appropriately, demonstrating that our security process and procedures work as designed,” said Randy Edington, APS Executive Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer. “These actions are clearly in line with our goal of ensuring the health and safety of the public and our employees.”

While the device has been removed from the plant site by MCSO, they and the FBI will be investigating the event. Palo Verde is cooperating fully with the investigation.
For more information on safety and security at America's nuclear power plants, click here. For a fact sheet on the issue, click here.

And please, when it comes to Drudge and reports about nuclear energy, somebody has a tendency to exaggerate for effect.

UPDATE: From APS -- Lockdown terminated at 3:00 p.m. U.S. PDT.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin