SCRIPT: Radioactive Road Trip (Primetime)

Oct. 13, 2005 — -- Tonight an invitation to join "Primetime" on a cross-country road trip and one we think is unlike any one you've ever seen before. It will have some familiar ingredients: students, souvenir pictures, kids up all night, but a very different destination. The assignment: to see how hard or easy it is to infiltrate nuclear reactors on college campuses. You may not know that these reactors are all over the nation and filled with just the kind of radioactive materials that terrorists want. As you watch this stunning investigation, remember how America lectures other countries on protecting their nuclear materials. And another note, before you write us those letters saying we've given the terrorists a playbook, you should know that six weeks ago, we disclosed our findings to the 25 universities and to officials in Washington, so they could fix the problems before the broadcast aired. So now, ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross sets off down the road on a radioactive road trip, beginning with an all-American football game.

BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS

Football Saturday at the University of Florida. 88,000 people in one of the country's biggest stadiums in one of the great American fall traditions. Just 200 yards away from the makings of a potential dirty bomb in this unguarded campus building, a building that houses in its basement a little-known nuclear reactor run on highly enriched weapons-grade uranium.

DAN HIRSCH, COMMITTEE TO BRIDGE THE GAP

There is nothing on earth more dangerous than weapons-grade nuclear material.

BRIAN ROSS

Yet, as part of an ABC News investigation, two journalism graduate students were able to show up unannounced and gain access in only about five minutes, carrying with them large bags that were not searched for weapons or explosives. A terrorist's dream according to the head of a nuclear watchdog group, Dan Hirsch.

DAN HIRSCH

A terrorist with a little bit of explosives in a backpack like that student would be able to release a vast amount of radioactivity in a very populated area. It would be a coup.

BRIAN ROSS

There are 25 college campuses with nuclear research reactors, and our investigation found gaping security holes at many of them. Unmanned guard booths, unlocked doors, and again and again, easy access with no background checks, no metal detectors to reactors using some of the most dangerous material in the world. This is the blue glow of radioactive uranium being kept cool at the bottom of a pool of water.

DAN HIRSCH

This is how it was 20 years ago. This is not how it should be after 9/11.

BRIAN ROSS

We conducted our investigation with the help of the non-profit Carnegie Corporation and ten graduate students selected to serve as Carnegie fellows assigned to ABC News for the summer. The students began their research as terrorists might. Using the Internet for a surprisingly large amount of detailed information about the location, operation and personnel at the nuclear reactors.

TAMIKA THOMPSON, CARNEGIE FELLOW

Once I knew the name of the reactor, it was a gold mine. All the information was there.

BRIAN ROSS

The college reactors date back to the Cold War when the government stressed the peaceful uses of nuclear power. They're much smaller than the big nuclear power reactors. But as this 1950s government film shows, an accident or sabotage could create a huge explosion. Essentially, a dirty bomb, a conventional explosion spewing radioactive material. Officials who license today's reactors say they have much safer designs and are so well shielded by concrete, there's little risk.

ROY ZIMMERMAN, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

I would say that both their safety and security is appropriate.

BRIAN ROSS

Roy Zimmerman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, is the Federal official in charge of the safety of college nuclear reactors.

BRIAN ROSS

They are in a heightened state of security awareness?

ROY ZIMMERMAN

Yes.

BRIAN ROSS

At these university reactors?

ROY ZIMMERMAN

Yes.

BRIAN ROSS

Have you ever done a spot visit on any of them?

ROY ZIMMERMAN

We have inspections that take place on a regular basis.

BRIAN ROSS

Unannounced visit, though? Unannounced visit?

ROY ZIMMERMAN

I'd have to check on that.

BRIAN ROSS

That's what we did.

ROY ZIMMERMAN

Right.

BRIAN ROSS

The ten Carnegie fellows broke into teams of two, with Dana Hughes and Tamika Thompson assigned to the Atlantic and Southeast states. Using home video cameras, they documented the steps along the way of their road trip.

TAMIKA THOMPSON

You want to go here or that way?

BRIAN ROSS

Dana and Tamika started at Penn State University where the reactor, using low enriched uranium, in its own building just down the road from a day-care center.

TAMIKA THOMPSON

There is the front entrance of the reactor.

BRIAN ROSS

As they arrived, Tamika could see the guard behind the shack, but she says there was a problem.

TAMIKA THOMPSON

He was sitting in the lawn chair outside of the booth, the security booth, and we can see him through the gates, and he was sleeping.

TAMIKA THOMPSON

It's 2:30 in the morning.

BRIAN ROSS

At night they found there's no guard at all. The NRC defended Penn State, saying the sleeping guard is not a guard and not part of the approved security plan.

ROY ZIMMERMAN

This unarmed individual is more of a watchman.

BRIAN ROSS

So, it doesn't matter if he's asleep.

ROY ZIMMERMAN

It may matter to university, but it's not NRC business.

DAN HIRSCH

What a horrible indictment of the federal authorities for having such minimal regulations.

BRIAN ROSS

Next, Dana and Tamika moved on to the University of Maryland, a half hour's drive from downtown Washington, DC. The reactor here is in an engineering classroom building about 30 feet down the hall from an unguarded entrance door that is supposed to be automatically locked at night. Dana and Tamika found the doors propped open by a garbage can through the night.

TAMIKA THOMPSON

It's 4:00 in the morning. Dana and I have been checking periodically since 9:00 AM yesterday morning to see if someone at the reactor facility would close the door. But even if they do, it's been open all day and all night.

BRIAN ROSS

The doors were never locked, and despite surveillance cameras, our team was never confronted as they walked around the building with their cameras. But university officials said they were not troubled by what we found.

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED AL-SHEIKHLY, REACTOR DIRECTOR

Here is one of the doors for the reactor.

BRIAN ROSS

Professor Mohammed al-Sheikhly runs the reactor and says even if someone got through these locked doors, he is confident campus police could quickly respond in what he called the highly unlikely event of a terror attack.

BRIAN ROSS

Aren't these outside doors supposed to be locked at night?

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED AL-SHEIKHLY

Not necessarily.

BRIAN ROSS

Not necessarily?

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED AL-SHEIKHLY

Not necessarily.

BRIAN ROSS

The sign says locked.

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED AL-SHEIKHLY

I'm not concerned about this.

BRIAN ROSS

Are you concerned terrorists could ...

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED AL-SHEIKHLY

I am not concerned at all about the terrorists.

BRIAN ROSS

You're not concerned about terrorists.

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED AL-SHEIKHLY

Absolutely not.

DAN HIRSCH

You just wonder what the university president or chancellor is thinking, to have doors wide open all night for a facility that has a nuclear reactor inside. It's just mind boggling.

BRIAN ROSS

Dana and Tamika's final stop was the University of Florida, where the reactor is in the middle of the campus, across the street from the stadium.

DAN HIRSCH

This particular reactor has 93 percent enriched fuel. That's the stuff that a connoisseur would salivate over. It is pure bio-grade material.

BRIAN ROSS

Yet our students here were able to get inside the reactor room itself by simply showing up and asking for a tour.

STUDENT

You're in the right place.

BRIAN ROSS

A student working as a licensed operator opened the first two of three locked doors. They were told to put their cameras away, but their bags were never checked and were left in a hallway just outside the reactor door about ten feet from the nuclear fuel itself. There were no metal detectors, no background checks and no guards as the reactor director himself unlocked the final door for the strangers.

REACTOR DIRECTOR

I don't have much time, but I'll give you maybe 15 minutes.

DANA HUGHES, CARNEGIE FELLOW

He didn't ask for our IDs until right before we went into the reactor, and it was almost, I would say, an afterthought. He said, "Oh, wait, I have to get your IDs."

TAMIKA THOMPSON

He became our key, and we were able to get into all of these rooms through him. If we were terrorists, we wouldn't need to have him let down his guard. He would be doing the same thing at the end of a gun barrel.

BRIAN ROSS

What we found at the University of Florida nuclear reactor is now the subject of an investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, concerned that strangers could get inside so easily.

BRIAN ROSS

What if they're terrorists and they overpower the man?

ROY ZIMMERMAN

Then you're left with the potential for a crude dirty bomb.

BRIAN ROSS

Across the street from a football stadium that on game day holds 88,000 people. The NRC says a dirty bomb here or at any of the university reactors would be unlikely to cause any significant health effects because they're so small, but others who have studied the matter are not so sure, including Professir Graham Allison of Harvard, a former assistant secretary of defense who knows a lot about the dirty bomb.

PROFESSOR GRAHM ALLISON, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

The reactors themselves could become the sources of substantial dirty bombs. It spews radioactivity, and that radioactivity can create radiation sickness. It can significantly increase our chances of getting cancer or leukemia or other diseases.