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Backgrounder: Targets for Terrorists: Chemical Facilities

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Eben Kaplan, Assistant Editor
December 11, 2006

Introduction

Chemicals are an essential part of life in the United States, vital to such industries as agriculture, manufacturing, oil refining, waste and drinking water management, and pharmaceutical production. But chemicals can pose a serious risk: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies fifteen thousand facilities that produce, use, or store potentially dangerous quantities of hazardous chemicals. Many of these plants sit in densely populated areas, which could be harmed if exposed to certain chemicals, and experts fear these facilities could be attractive targets for terrorists. Evaluating chemical security in a recent podcast, Stephen E. Flynn, CFR senior fellow for national security studies, called current efforts “totally unsatisfactory in light of the threat that some very deadly chemicals can pose.”

Are U.S. chemical facilities safe?

Experts disagree. Some point to the lax security documented at chemical plants in recent years. In 2002, Carl Prine, an investigative reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, found he could simply walk onto the premises of dozens of chemical plants around the country, some of which stored hazardous materials that could endanger millions of people. In a few cases, employees even “gave directions to the most sensitive valves and control rooms.”

But Alex Skora, president and CEO of Estron Chemical, says security is not as loose as Prine would suggest. “You’re always going to find lapses here and there,” he says, adding that if for no other reason than liability, “The industry polices itself extremely vigorously.”

Nevertheless, experts warn chemical facilities are particularly attractive targets for terrorists.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.