Dean Was Warned on Vermont Security

Presidential hopeful Howard Dean, who accuses President Bush of being weak on homeland security, was warned repeatedly as Vermont governor about security lapses at his state’s nuclear power plant and was told the state was ill-prepared for a disaster at its most attractive terrorist target.

The warnings, according to documents obtained by Associated Press, began in 1991 when a group of students was brought into a secure area of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant without proper screening. On at least two occasions, a gun or mock terrorists passed undetected into the plant during security tests.

During Dean’s final year in office in 2002, an audit concluded that despite a decade of repeated warnings of poor safety at Vermont Yankee, Dean’s administration was poorly prepared for a nuclear disaster.

Security was so lax at Vermont Yankee that in August 2001, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staged a drill in which three mock terrorists gained access to the plant. The agency gave Vermont Yankee the worst security rating among the nation’s 103 reactors.

Dean’s campaign said Saturday that it ultimately was the NRC’s responsibility to ensure security at the plant, but that he badgered Vermont Yankee’s operators and the NRC to make improvements during the 1990s. It noted that the NRC’s safety budget was cut in the 1990s.

“After Sept. 11, Gov. Dean decided the buck stops here in terms of security and personally ran this effort, creating a Cabinet-level agency,” spokesman Jay Carson said.

“As many have said before, hindsight is 20-20 and no one could have predicted what could have happened on a terrible day in Sept. 2001,” Carson said.

State Auditor Elizabeth M. Ready, a Democrat and Dean backer, said that things improved after her critical 2002 report and that security tests this year showed Vermont Yankee was safer.

“Once Gov. Dean got that report, there was swift and thorough action,” she said.