DISARMING A NUCLEAR MENACE

Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By JEANNE BONNER

Larry Satkowiak can sympathize with most security directors — he, too, is concerned about access control, asset management and audit trails. Satkowiak's job is to protect highly enriched uranium and plutonium, materials needed to make nuclear weapons, located a world away in Russia.

Satkowiak is the director of the U.S. Center for International Threat Reduction, which was established at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tenn., in 1999. Satkowiak is involved in a U.S. Department of Energy program aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation through the use of material accounting procedures and physical security upgrades at Russian nuclear facilities. As project team leader for the Dmitrovgrad Institute, one of the project sites, he has traveled extensively to Russia to assess the program's efforts and assist in training. The Center for International Threat Reduction is also involved in numerous projects that address non-physical security aspects of non-proliferation efforts.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, one of the U.S. government's biggest international concerns is nuclear proliferation. Proliferation of nuclear weaponry and the unregulated handling of nuclear materials — including highly enriched uranium — threaten to jeopardize U.S. national security. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. government agencies have invested large amounts of time and money to ensure that plutonium does not fall into the wrong hands.

The DOE program sends scientists from U.S. national laboratories to Russian nuclear facilities to train employees there on proper techniques for handling and accounting for nuclear materials. The program is a joint effort of the DOE and the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy. The funds required for the program are allocated on an annual basis by the United States Congress and distributed to national laboratories.

A critical part of the DOE initiative is the material protection, control and accounting (MPC&A) program, which seeks to regulate and improve the procedures that govern nuclear material handling to create a more secure environment. Implementing MPC&A measures, Russian facility managers and their American counterparts hope to limit access to materials and detect theft when it occurs.

The creation of a security-conscious culture within the Russian facilities has been an essential part of the program, and training provided by Satkowiak and his colleagues is critical for maintaining the upgrades. On the equipment side, the systems vary from site to site, but the teams have supervised the purchase and installation of access control, alarms, multiple barriers, fences, badging equipment, sallyports and motion detectors.

The DOE teams have worked at more than 40 sites in Russia, Siberia and the Baltic states. Sites receiving upgrades include fuel storage facilities, research and development institutes, power plants and weapons factories. Members involved in the materials protection program cover a variety of disciplines including physical security, facilities management, and material control and accounting experts. Participating American scientists work on a consultant basis and are employed at various national laboratories, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore, Brookhaven and Sandia laboratories.

AMERICAN SCIENTISTS FAN OUT ACROSS RUSSIA TO IMPROVE SECURITY

When the American scientists began the program in 1994, the Russian government had no funding for security upgrades. Employees at the facilities were paid sporadically or not at all, and security was deteriorating. “Nuclear materials had been intercepted while in transit, and numerous incidents of theft and attempted theft of materials had been reported. These conditions were brought to the attention of the CIA and the DOE,” says Satkowiak.

The transport of weapons-usable materials presented a significant concern — very little security was used to ensure that the materials got safely to their destination. Rail access at central storage facilities increased risk of interception and theft.

The staffs of various Russian facilities relied on perimeter security controls, specifically barbed wire, to deter trespassers. The DOE teams found windows without alarms and often saw no access control at all. There were magnetic contacts on personnel doors but the perimeter technology was crude at best — generally consisting of triple concrete barriers with barbed wire.

The facilities had doors with no audit trail feature. Keys would be checked out but there was no system to monitor how often an employee accessed a location.

“At the main warehouse, shipping containers containing enriched uranium sat on loading docks — there were no cameras watching. We calculated how long it would take to penetrate the facilities and steal containers of nuclear materials: between 30 and 35 seconds,” says Satkowiak.

According to Satkowiak, some materials they found sitting on loading docks or in unattended rooms could have been easily converted to a bomb, even by an unskilled terrorist.

Some of the sites the American team visits are located in a series of “closed cities” in Russia which did not appear on official maps until recently. “These cities were part of a secret program to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons. The cities are still closed to the Russian public, but their mission has changed significantly since the close of the Cold War,” Satkowiak explains.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, exterior attacks on nuclear facilities were non-existent. At the facilities located in the closed, unknown cities, facility managers had little fear of infiltration and hence little concern of material theft. “The Soviet government controlled every move a citizen made. There were tight internal controls as well. The controls disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union. When we arrived, they were using tracks in the snow and dirt at the perimeter to determine if someone had trespassed,” relates Satkowiak. The facilities had relied heavily on state police for surveillance.

COOPERATION YIELDS INCREASED SAFETY AND SECURITY

One of the first tasks completed by Satkowiak's team was to install metal gratings and alarms on windows. Materials were then secured in triple-layered cages made of rebar/stretch steel. “Our focus is where the materials are,” says Satkowiak.

“They had a form of badging in which guards inspected badges and compared the photos with the people in front of them. We rebadged with proximity cards. Sensitive areas require a PIN as well,” says Satkowiak.

Some 15 facilities of the 40 sites in the program have access control equipment manufactured by Hirsch Electronics, Santa Ana, Calif. Lars Suneborn, government program manager at Hirsch Electronics, has been involved with the program since 1995 and has visited many of the sites. “An interesting aspect of this project was the focus not on access control per se but rather on exit control. Our equipment needed to make sure materials did not leave,” he says.

Suneborn recalls a natural reluctance on the part of the Russian employees and a dichotomy in the approach to security. “Culture was the biggest problem we faced. Security for them meant absolute control of people,” says Suneborn. It also meant less of a concern over controlling materials than controlling people.

Suneborn's first system was installed at a facility producing highly enriched uranium near Moscow. The basic access control system at these facilities is Hirsch's S.A.M. system, which includes badging, CCTV and intrusion detection. The CCTV element does not permit monitoring but rather is used now for assessment purposes. The employees receive photo IDs, produced on the badging system.

The Hirsch installations follow a concentric circle configuration of security. Security levels increase as one moves from the perimeter to the core of the building. At the building's core, there might be a storage area or a production unit, and security to enter these areas consists now of swiping a card and entering a code in a Scramblebox.

Suneborn also worked with Recognition Systems, Campbell, Calif., to secure important parts of the facilities, including the inner storage vaults. The areas are protected by access control featuring a Recognition Systems hand geometry reader.

Most of the facilities use two guard forces. The interior ministry provides guards, and there is an internal security group that monitors alarms at the central station. Guards check employees' cards which contain holographic images.

Some of the facilities now have mantraps at the main entrance, through which personnel and guests enter. There are checkpoints and a few facilities use sallyports to inspect incoming cars.

The first round of equipment installed at the facilities came from U.S. manufacturers. Now Russian or other regional manufacturers are used, including the German CCTV manufacturer, Grundig. Eleron Manufacturing, a spin-off of the Russian Department of Energy, has several contracts with the facilities for readers, sensors and controllers.

Training — of all levels of employees — comprises a considerable segment of the program. Technical experts from the U.S. laboratories, including Satkowiak and his team, share their knowledge of repair and maintenance, computer security, and protection of non-destructive assets, among other areas.

A significant aspect of the training is conveying the importance of the two-man control, which consists of dispatching a two-person team to sensitive areas. Each person must swipe a card, enter a code and scan his hand to enter the sensitive area. The two people are authorized to enter these areas, but they must enter and stay together.

“We push the two-man rule. We try to impress upon them the security inherent in teams of two people,” says Satkowiak.

Hirsch has participated in training efforts as well. In remote areas, Suneborn and his team have provided training to educate Russian workers how to maintain the equipment. In more densely populated areas, Hirsch has recruited and trained a network of authorized dealers.

Securing a legacy

Sustainability has become a watchword for everyone involved in the program. The DOE teams need to ensure that the Russian facility managers and their employees are able to use the installed equipment and implement the new security procedures correctly. The long-term goal of everyone involved in the physical security upgrade is to maintain and support the new systems with native resources. An essential part of the process is a sense of ownership on the part of the facilities managers for the security program.

“The Novosibirsk facility in Siberia, for example, is making a profit, so it doesn't want to upgrade its security equipment. There is no incentive,” explains Satkowiak. “There has been some resistance on part of the old guard, the hardliners. A facility director might have come up through the ranks under the old system and may still have that mentality.” The program's objective, however, is to reeducate the staff on how to perceive material controls and security, and the American team has seen results.

The conditions at the Russian facilities now may not be up to U.S. standards for storing nuclear materials, but they have come a long way. “The goal of our program was not necessarily to bring the facilities to an American standard. The goal was to share our expertise with our Russian counterparts to foster cooperation in global security,” concludes Satkowiak.

“The Russians we have met have good ideas, and they appreciate the security they now have,” says Satkowiak. AC&SSI Larry Satkowiak of the Center for International Threat Reduction and his group made it a priority to protect the materials with triple-layered cages. “Our focus is where the materials are,” says Satkowiak.

FOR THE RECORD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeanne Bonner is associate editor of Access Control & Security Systems Integration.

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