Officials Say Plant Was Never in Danger

Even though San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station plant managers had been trying to fire mechanic David L. Reza for several years, they and industry regulators said Wednesday that he never posed an internal threat to the power plant.

They said that extensive security measures in place at all 103 reactors in 31 states, including the one in north San Diego County, effectively prevent internal sabotage by employees and contractors.

Reza’s security clearance to potentially dangerous areas of the plant was revoked in 1995, when he was fired for the first time, according to a plant spokesman and a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Company officials would not elaborate on why he was fired in 1995. Reza, 44, worked at the plant from 1984 in the maintenance division, where he was responsible for maintaining and repairing equipment, they said.

He was rehired in 1998 but was out on disability leave until July of last year.

When Reza returned to the company, he worked in the plant’s paint shop, which is at a separate San Onofre facility, called “The Mesa.” The facility is about three miles from the nuclear site, on the other side of the San Diego Freeway, and consists of warehouses and other buildings where employees are trained, said Southern California Edison spokesman Ray Golden. The utility company owns and manages the plant.

Reza reapplied for “unescorted access” to the nuclear plant again but was turned down. In late December, he was fired a second time.

He was arrested Tuesday for allegedly threatening to shoot former co-workers. Detectives said they found more than 250 weapons--including antique rifles and empty hand grenades--as well as 5,000 rounds of ammunition and a small amount of cocaine at his Laguna Niguel home and a storage locker he rented.

Brett Henderson, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region 4 office, which covers California, said it would be possible for a firearms enthusiast or gun collector to work at a nuclear power facility, if all of the weapons are legal.

“But this is important,” Henderson said. “He was not granted access to the protected area the second time he was hired.”

Henderson said he could not say why such access was denied. Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime critic of the San Onofre plant and a member of the Coalition for Responsible Ethical Environmental Decisions, a San Clemente environmental group, said Reza’s case raises troubling questions.

“This is not the type of person you want working at a nuclear power plant,” Hicks said. “This should bring about more careful hiring practices.”

But Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the industry group’s Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C., said every person who applies for a job at any of the nation’s nuclear power plants undergoes extensive criminal, psychological and employment history checks.

Even employees with clearance to sensitive areas of the plant must go through metal detectors, turnstiles or other security checkpoints.

Reza originally had unescorted access to the nuclear parts of the San Onofre plant, one of about 1,000 employees who have such access.

At some point, plant security officials were alerted that Reza should not be allowed into the plant for any reason. Golden said he did not know if these instructions were given before or after the threat.

“His badges had been removed. We had photos up of him with explicit instructions to our security that he was not to be let in.”

Golden said that Reza never threatened the plant itself. “It is our assessment that there never was a terrorist threat against San Onofre,” he said.

Since Sept. 11, already extensive security has been increased. Every car trying to enter the plant is stopped, and security guards check the identification cards for each employee. Visitors’ cars are searched before entering. About 80% of security guards at the facility have some background in law enforcement or the military. “These are not rent-a-cops,” Golden said.

Industry officials and regulators also stressed that anyone working at a power plant is subject to potential immediate removal of security clearances. As part of continuous, mandatory “behavior monitoring observation,” supervisors and co-workers are trained to look for odd behavior, and to report it at once.

Most common, said Henderson, are cases when a plant operator or other employee arrives at work “with alcohol on their breath, and a co-worker notices and reports it.”

All workers are subject to spot drug and alcohol tests. If someone tests positive, security clearance is yanked “in an hour,” Henderson said. “He’s taken off the shift and not permitted to come back in the plant.”

Such workers are then entitled to “fitness for duty” hearings.

“But they take immediate action to take them out of the plant. We always err on the side of caution,” Henderson said.