NRC: News Release - 2010-122 - NRC Publishes Annual Security Inspection Report on Nuclear Facilities to Congress


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NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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No. 10-122

July 8, 2010

NRC PUBLISHES ANNUAL SECURITY INSPECTION REPORT
ON NUCLEAR FACILITIES TO CONGRESS
Printable Version

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has made available to the public an unclassified version of an annual report to Congress outlining the 2009 security inspection program. The report covers the security inspection program, including force-on-force exercises, for commercial power reactors and fuel cycle facilities for calendar year 2009.

“Regularly assessing the security of nuclear power plants is a critical part of the NRC’s overall mission to protect the public’s health and safety. This report represents hundreds of staff hours of work and our steady commitment to this responsibility,” said NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko. “The report should make clear the high level of dedication this agency has and the strong oversight the NRC provides to ensure security in the nuclear power industry.”

According to the report, required under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the NRC conducted 179 security inspections at commercial power reactors, of which 24 were force-on-force inspections. These force-on-force inspections use a well-trained mock adversary force to test a facility’s ability to respond to the level of threat the facility is required to defend against. The security inspections yielded 180 findings from these reviews, of which 168 (94 percent) were of very low security significance and 12 were of low to moderate security significance. The results of the security inspections conducted at fuel cycle facilities are discussed in the Safeguards Information version of this report.

Under the security inspection program, licensees are expected to promptly fix or put compensatory measures in place if any potentially significant deficiencies are identified in the protective strategy of a plant. According to the report, 25 force-on-force inspections are scheduled for the 2010 calendar year.

The public version of the report can be found on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/congress-docs/correspondence/2010/boxer-06-30-2010.pdf .

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