From Andrzej Ostrowski, National Atomic Energy
In “Plutonium for sale” you give a one-sided view of international
arrangements for the physical protection of nuclear materials
(26 May, p 10).
In fact, the Sandia National Laboratories in the US, together with Britain’s
Directorate of Civil Nuclear Security, worked with the Polish authorities to
design, erect and finance a physical protection system around the most sensitive
facility in Poland. The project was described at the International Atomic Energy
Agency conference in Stockholm reported in the piece. Similar projects have been
undertaken in Hungary, Romania and Ukraine.
Poland, one of the 11 countries described as not having “any radiation
monitoring equipment covering its unfenced borders”, has spent considerable
funds installing 131 radiation portal monitors at road, rail, airport and sea
crossing points. As a result, 73,296,629 units of transportation—passenger
cars, buses, trains, planes and sea vessels—were checked in the year 2000.
In all, 7519 alarms were dealt with. These cases included 4200 transports of
natural isotopes and 120 patients who had undergone isotope therapy. In 22 of
them, entry into Poland was denied.
Warsaw
