Bad chemistry

Josh, who wrote the article in this post, is my oldest friend—since age 3, when we went to play group together. The article was originally published by the Albuquerque Tribune in late October, 2004.--BG

Bad chemistry

Our chemical plants could be ready-made bombs for terrorists, but the Senate isn't budging on legislation to ensure better security

COMMENTARY

By Josh Sher

Since Sept. 11, 2001, chemical plants have been recognized as significant potential targets for a terrorist attack. Why is this? There are at least three reasons.

First, even commonplace chemicals can pose significant health risks. As an example, chlorine gas, which was used as a chemical weapon during World War I, can burn a human's respiratory tract.

Second, many chemical facilities are located in urban areas or near water supplies and store potentially dangerous chemicals on site. In 2002, Greenpeace put a map on the Internet that predicted highly toxic chlorine gas would cover much of New York City, if a particular chemical plant in New Jersey were attacked.

Finally, many chemical plants have minimal security. For instance, in a July 14, 2002, report, the New York Daily News found no security at the Matheson Tri-Gas facility in East Rutherford, N.J. Why would terrorists need to sneak a weapon of mass destruction into the United States, when such a weapon is just sitting around unprotected in the United States already? A well-placed bomb in one of these chemical facilities could potentially kill millions of people.

In recognition of the severity of this issue, two bills were placed before the U.S. Senate in early 2003, addressing the risks posed by attacks on chemical facilities: Senate Bill S157, sponsored by New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine, and Senate Bill S994, sponsored by Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe.

Both bills require vulnerability assessments at chemical facilities that contain potentially harmful chemicals, but there are significant differences between the bills.

S157 requires chemical companies to submit their assessments to the Environmental Protection Agency for review, so if a plan is insufficient for the current threat level, the EPA will notify the facility of this and, if necessary, take appropriate actions to correct the problem. Further, S157 gives the EPA an oversight role in determining which chemicals are potentially harmful and calls for the companies to reduce on-site storage of the chemicals.

The Republican bill, S994, has greatly reduced requirements on the chemical industry. The Department of Homeland Security is given the oversight role for the risk assessment process, but there are no requirements for submitting the assessments to the government for review, and there are no requirements for reducing on-site storage of dangerous chemicals.

An ideal bill would provide both a carrot and a stick for the chemical industry.

The stick should be a formal requirement to perform a comprehensive terrorism risk assessment, which includes an assessment of the safety risks to the general population from attacks/accidents at each facility and an assessment of the adequacy of the current security. The carrot should be government grants given to chemical facilities that produced thorough assessments, which could be used either for securing these facilities or, even better, for switching to less-dangerous chemicals.

Sadly, the Republican Senate leadership has taken no action on either bill. S157 has been pending without action for 18 months, and the Senate has not scheduled a vote on S994, which made it out of committee more than a year ago. Chemical plants, meanwhile, have taken minimal actions to improve security, while waiting for direction from the government.

The Bush administration has not taken a position on the chemical security bills.

At present, a disproportionate amount of federal Homeland Security money is being spent on airports, while other areas such as chemical facilities or ports are given meager resources. Further, terrorists have demonstrated the capability to use existing infrastructure as a weapon.

While it important to deny the terrorists access to planes, it is also important to deny them access to large quantities of dangerous chemicals.

The present situation is like securing a house by triple-locking the front door, while leaving the back door wide open and leaving matches and gasoline lying around. It's cheaper and more effective to single-lock both doors and remove the matches and the gasoline.

Sher is a senior scientist working on terrorism risk assessment for ARES Corp. in Albuquerque.