By George Lobsenz
In a striking departure from the Energy Department’s typical blanket secrecy about internal reviews of security at its nuclear facilities, the operator of DoE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory this month announced that a recent inspection by the department’s Office of Independent Oversight had confirmed that security at the California nuclear weapons lab had improved since a disastrous security review in April 2008.
In particular, Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (LLNS), a consortium led by the University of California and Bechtel, issued a May 15 press release saying the lab’s security guards had succeeded in a “force-on-on-force” exercise in repelling a simulated attack on the facility by DoE security experts posing as terrorists seeking to gain access to weapons-usable plutonium stored at the site.
“The security organization really stepped up to the plate and demonstrated the kind of ‘can do’ spirit this lab is known for in rapidly making security improvements at a time of limited resources,” said Dave Leary, director of LLNS’s security organization.
The glowing assessment follows an April 2008 force-on-force exercise in which the lab’s security guards failed to stop the adversary force from gaining access to a simulated cache of plutonium–a lapse that drew strong expressions of concern from DoE officials and outrage from key lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The incident also proved embarrassing for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous weapons agency within DoE, because only six months before the botched April 2008 security test NNSA’s Livermore site office gave LLNS 100 percent satisfactory ratings for its security performance in 2007.
Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee subsequently asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a detailed review of the Livermore debacle and report back on whether the lab and NNSA were taking effective corrective action.
In a March 16 report to lawmakers, which was publicly released in April, GAO said that as of December 2008, LLNS had reported completing 74 percent of the milestones in its plan to fix the 54 security deficiencies cited by DoE’s Office of Independent Oversight after the failed April 2008 security test.
However, GAO said most of the deficiencies were caused by the lab’s failure to provide the money needed to properly carry out security programs. And GAO said the real test was whether Livermore could maintain its improved security performance given earlier episodes in which deficiencies reappeared several years after they were fixed.
For example, GAO said DoE cited Livermore in 1999 for problems in recognizing security vulnerabilities. “By 2000, this problem has been corrected,” GAO observed. “In 2008, DoE again noted deficiencies in [Livermore’s] vulnerability assessment capability.”
However, LLNS said a preliminary report filed by the Office of Independent Oversight on its April 2009 inspection concluded that the lab had made “significant progress” in fixing its problems.
The contractor said the oversight office saw “positive aspects/trends” in regard to improved physical security systems; command and control upgrades to nuclear facilities; revitalized force-on-force testing; demonstrated emergency response capability; improved protection, control and management of classified material; and improved vulnerability and self-assessment capabilities in protection program management.
Overall, the oversight office said in its preliminary report that the lab has made “significant progress to address previously identified security deficiencies and to strengthen the overall effectiveness of the lab’s protection programs,” according to LLNS, which did not release the entire preliminary report.
LLNS also said it had implemented corrective action plans for all the deficiencies cited in the April 2008 security review by the oversight office.
The security weaknesses at Livermore were especially worrisome because the failed April 2008 force-on-force exercise was designed to test the lab’s ability to defend against a relatively small terrorist force, as described in DoE’s 2003 “design basis threat” (DBT). A later DBT document issued by the department in 2005 requires DoE security forces to show they can repel larger terrorist forces using more advanced weaponry and tactics.
DoE officials agreed to keep the easier 2003 DBT in effect at Livermore because the department plans to transfer all plutonium and high-enriched uranium from the lab to other DoE sites by September 2012.
DoE officials said it made no sense to spend money on additional security improvements to meet the tougher 2005 DBT because the sensitive nuclear material would soon be removed from Livermore, which presents heightened terrorism risks because it is located in the heavily populated San Francisco Bay area.