Security Lapses Found at Livermore Nuclear Lab

Quantities of plutonium large enough to build a nuclear bomb were found unattended at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory in California, according to a congressional report released Sunday.

The failure to follow regulations for protecting high-grade plutonium was among a number of security lapses found by inspectors from the U.S. Department of Energy, according to department officials who testified at a closed hearing in July. The Livermore lab, 55 miles east of San Francisco, was ranked lowest among the 26 weapons facilities and regional offices inspected for safeguards of nuclear weapons materials, according to a declassified transcript of their testimony.

The transcript released Sunday was heavily edited by the Energy Department.

In the July hearing, leaders of the House energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations charged that department officials sought to mislead the President by glossing over and minimizing security lapses in annual reports to the White House.

The department’s reports to the White House have been “more on the order of what one would expect from your local Chamber of Commerce,” said subcommittee chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich).

In underscoring the seriousness of unprotected plutonium, Energy Department officials acknowledged at the hearing that the radioactive material is a key ingredient needed by terrorists to produce nuclear devices.

According to the transcript, Edward J. McCallum, the department’s top security evaluator, testified that the security program at Livermore “has not been effective.”

Quantities of plutonium and other nuclear weapons materials were “left unattended in unalarmed rooms during off-shift hours” by security guards, McCallum told the subcommittee. He said “corrective steps” have since been taken.

The Livermore lab, which is operated by the University of California under a contract with the Energy Department, has been criticized in recent years for alleged drug use by some employees as well as theft of government property from the facility.

McCallum reported that security systems at one Livermore building in which weapons-grade plutonium is handled “do not provide assurance” that the highly radioactive material is “adequately protected from theft or sabotage.”

He added that protections were inadequate to detect contraband at entry gates or to screen intruders from sensitive areas where nuclear materials are kept.

Dingell and Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D-Minn.), a member of the panel, charged that Energy Department officials had glossed over these and similar problems at other facilities in internal memos and in annual reports to the White House.

Dingell said that according to subcommittee sources, a senior weapons security official at Washington headquarters, Edward V. Badolato, told those preparing an annual report to the President that the report should be “general in nature and contain pictures.”

Donald W. Pearman Jr., acting manager of the San Francisco regional office of the department, told the subcommittee that when his office conducted an earlier inspection at Livermore, inspectors omitted the building where plutonium is handled. Because of this oversight, Pearman said he was unaware of the security problem until McCallum’s inspection in May.

Energy Secretary James D. Watkins, in a letter released by the subcommittee, said that the San Francisco office has since changed its inspection methods to include “an intensive annual survey” of all Livermore facilities.

Dingell commended Watkins and other Bush Administration appointees at Energy for displaying “a serious appreciation of the magnitude of the problems and their intention to do the right thing.”

Sikorski, however, said that some Energy Department officials appeared reluctant to make accurate reports on the severity of security lapses, preferring to hide behind vague language.

He noted, for example, that Argonne National Laboratory West in Idaho was given “satisfactory” security reviews in 1987 and 1988 despite the fact that laboratory workers “were observed violating access control procedures for removing equipment . . . which could contain plutonium.”

Hilary J. Rauch, a security inspector, acknowledged to Sikorski that the satisfactory description “could be subject to interpretation.” Rauch said that the Argonne security system, in fact, was “less than adequate.”

“These are . . . vulnerabilities that should never have occurred,” Sikorski said, according to the transcript.

“That is correct, sir,” Rauch replied.

“Is there a reason you didn’t want to tell the secretary (of energy) that there were serious problems at Argonne West?” Sikorski persisted.

“Absolutely not,” Rauch said.

The subcommittee also released a memo written in April by Brig. Gen. Paul Kavanaugh that criticized the department for failing to accurately report the seriousness of security problems at nuclear weapons laboratories.

Kavanaugh, an Army nuclear weapons specialist, objected that “the state of security at LLNL (Livermore) . . . was not made a matter of record by either LLNL or SAN (the San Francisco office).”

“DOE is under continuous criticism from both inside the government and the public for lack of consistency and credibility,” Kavanaugh continued in his memo.

“If, within the DOE, we cannot articulate and enforce effective security practices at our most sensitive facilities, we will deserve the comments of our most vocal critics.”