Orange County Register

This from my colleague Michael Coronado, who has gone to the dark side (i.e., become an editor), but spent years in the trenches reporting. MC was impressed by the security at San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant (the secrecy surrounding security at nuclear power plants since 9/11 has become an issue) and provided this account to The Watchdog. (”Bollards,” for the record, are “short vertical posts typically found where large ships dock.”) From MC:

“I did the full tour of the joint about two years ago…. The thing you’ll note about San O is that it is a very secure place. They have secrets they don’t tell you, like the bollards buried throughout the place that pop up from a security center to keep cars from getting in or out of the inner plant. They have a full tactical SWAT team with (big nasty guns) there and a control room that is pretty nifty. They also use fingerprint scanners and a slide card to get in and out of doors and steel turnstiles that allow access to the plant. It’s next to impossible to access the plant if even you try to take it by force.

“Having also covered the corrections system for two years at the PE (Riverside Press Enterprise), I’ve been in and out of prisons like the California Institute for Men, California Institute for Women, California Rehabilitation Center, Stark Youth Center throughout the Norco - knew Susan Atkins (Manson family killer) personally, too, which was a little weird (she’s quite the landscape painter) but I’m digressing. That’s all to say, I know security a little bit from those areas and San O to me is actually more secure in many ways than some prisons I’ve covered.”

The Watchdog visited San Onofre last year as well. Armed guards, guardhouses, turnstiles, sophisticated detector machines that sniff and snort at you as you enter and leave sensitive areas - yes, it seemed more secure than jails she has had the pleasure of visiting as well.

But just to keep the issue straight: It’s the secrecy surrounding the Nuclear Regulatory Comission’s security inspections - and the little glitches found, no matter how small - that bothers some folks, not necessarily the quality of the security itself. The NRC, sensitive to the balance it must strike, is seeking input. That seems like a good thing.

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