Security Lapses Alleged at Raleigh Area Nuke PlantAuthorities slow to guarantee public safety

When you visit Progress Energy's Web site, you're greeted with a message that says, "The relentless pursuit of excellence. It's what we're all about."

But that's not the image painted by security guards in charge of protecting the company's Shearon Harris nuclear power plant near Raleigh, N.C.

At least two guards have come forward to blow the whistle on serious security concerns at the facility 20 miles southwest of North Carolina's capital. The alleged problems include malfunctioning security doors to critical parts of the operation, vehicles being waved through checkpoints without required searches and widespread cheating on state security certification exams. Even more disturbing, the problems come as Progress Energy's North Carolina facilities are under apparent attack by hostile forces, with recent incidents involving someone trespassing on plant-controlled property to hang a black flag from a communication tower at Shearon Harris, a guard coming under gunfire from the woods near that facility and reported sabotage of a rail line leading from the company's Brunswick nuclear power plant near Wilmington, N.C.

The whistleblowers also report poor morale among the guards, who earn a starting wage of less than $14 an hour for what is arguably one of the most important jobs in the post-9/11 United States. The guards say they are required to put in long hours of overtime and are discouraged from reporting or seeking care for injuries sustained on the job - problems that have led some of them to begin organizing with the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America. (The Shearon Harris guards tried to organize last year with the United Government Security Officers of America but were not successful.) Problematic working conditions for nuclear power plants guards are not limited to Shearon Harris but have been documented at facilities across the nation by the Project on Government Oversight in its 2002 report, Voices From Inside the Fences.

The guards draw a connection between the Shearon Harris plant's security problems and a corporate culture that emphasizes cutting costs. Indeed, Progress Chairman and CEO Bob McGehee recently announced a third-quarter income gain of $147 million that he attributed in part to the company's successful "cost management initiative."

One anonymous guard's allegations form the basis of a complaint filed with federal and state authorities by the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network of Durham, N.C. and the Union of Concerned Scientists of Cambridge, Mass.

That guard's allegations have been confirmed by another guard who I interviewed for a recent story in The Independent. I am withholding his name to protect him from feared retaliation by his bosses. Security guards at the plant are employed by Securitas Security Services USA, a subsidiary of Sweden-based Securitas AB, the world's largest security firm. However, they answer to supervisors employed by Raleigh-based Progress.

The guards' allegations and the watchdog groups' complaint have been widely reported - not only by The Independent but also in the Raleigh News and Observer, Durham Herald-Sun and WTVD, Raleigh's local ABC television news affiliate. In addition, the N&O ran an editorial calling on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state Attorney General Roy Cooper to investigate the allegations "as fully as possible." (The editorial charged N.C. WARN, a longtime nuclear critic, with having "an agenda" - a charge deconstructed in a subsequent letter to the editor by Jim Jensen, who pointed out that Progress Energy and the NRC have agendas as well.)

Progress spokesperson Rick Kimble told me that his company was looking into the watchdog groups' allegations. However, he acknowledged to reporter Wade Rawlins of the N&O that the facility did have malfunctioning door locks but insisted that the malfunctions don't compromise security. "If the locking mechanism doesn't work, there is a compensatory measure such as having a live guard stand there," Kimble told Rawlins.

Despite the widespread reporting of the alleged security shortcomings, the public authorities with whom the watchdog groups lodged their complaint have not yet stepped forth to assure citizens that the problems are being addressed. The NRC says it's investigating but can't divulge any details on nuke plant security. The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it has jurisdiction only over external threats such as the flag, gunshot and rail sabotage incidents, which are still under investigation. And Attorney General Roy Cooper's office punted its investigation to the state's Private Protective Services Board, which oversees the security certification tests. Progress, meanwhile, is spending its time and energy investigating the guards for releasing their concerns to the public, as I reported in last week's Independent.

Meanwhile, the whistleblowing guards live in fear - not only about the possibility of losing their jobs for speaking out, and not only about the potential of nuclear terror, but also about what will become of them if catastrophe strikes at Shearon Harris.

"It would be just like Abu Ghraib prison," one guard told me bitterly. "If something happens to that plant, it will be us guards that get into trouble."