US boosts protection at some 400 toxic chem sites

13 June 2007 17:01  [Source: ICIS news]

FALLS CHURCH, Virginia (ICIS news)--Antiterrorism safeguards have been improved at nearly 400 US chemical sites where toxic inhalant hazardous (TIH) materials would pose a serious threat to local communities, federal officials said on Wednesday.

Robert Stephan, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, told industry executives that even as the department begins to roll out new chemical plant site security regulations, work is nearly completed on increased protection at 394 US sites deemed to pose the greatest TIH risk to population centres.

Toxic inhalant hazardous materials include chlorine, anhydrous ammonia and solvents, among others. They are considered high risk substances in federal antiterrorism planning because if inhaled even in small amounts they can cause a high number of fatalities and serious injuries in populations downwind of a facility.

Among other possible terrorist attack scenarios, federal security officials worry that terrorists might assault a facility holding large volumes of TIH chemicals, using high explosives to release those toxic substances into the atmosphere over dense population areas.

Stephan, who heads federal efforts to protect critical infrastructure such as chemicals manufacturing, said his department has worked with plant owners and state and local police and emergency response authorities to increase buffer areas around the 394 TIH facilities. 

He said the department has directed federal grants to state and local entities, for example, to increase police patrols around high risk plants and to provide better equipment to local authorities for observation and detection.

“We have made real progress in this area,” Stephan told some 400 industry executives attending the fourth annual chemical security summit.

“We have completed security upgrades at about 95% of these 394 plant sites, and we expect to complete improvements at the remaining few by the end of this year,” Stephan said.

“These facilities have been taken off the table as far as being easy targets for would-be terrorists,” he said.

The department this week began enforcement work under its new chemical plant site security mandate, authorised by Congress late last year.  The new rules will require perhaps as many as 8,000 US facilities to beef up security measures to meet antiterrorism protection standards that the department will set for high risk sites.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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