U.S. officials have revised the number of sleeping-guard incidents at a Tennessee nuclear weapons facility they reported earlier this week, now indicating that seven guards have been caught napping since 2000, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 15).
On Monday a U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman said two guards had been disciplined in the past four years at the Y-12 facility, but yesterday the spokesman said seven officers were found asleep in the past eight years. The site is responsible for storing weapon-grade uranium and assembling U.S. nuclear weapons, among other activities.
"Given how serious NNSA considers our responsibility of safeguarding our nuclear facilities, we feel it is important to provide you with a complete accounting of inattention incidents involving security police officers found sleeping on the job at Y-12," said spokesman Steven Wyatt.
Of the seven sleeping guards, three were found to have been "intentionally sleeping on duty" and were fired, Wyatt said. The remaining four received lesser penalties, including suspensions without pay of up to three weeks, and all were placed on 12-month probations.
The guards worked for Wackenhut Services Inc., a security firm whose parent company lost a contract to protect 10 U.S. nuclear power plants after two of its security officers were filmed sleeping on the job at a Pennsylvania power plant (see GSN, Jan. 4).
A Wackenhut spokeswoman said the firm has been trying to enhance guard alertness by reducing the amount of overtime they work. She also said the sleeping incidents were unusual.
"There have been a few isolated incidents for us, which we took very seriously," said Courtney Henry. "For the number of security officers that we have working at Y-12, it is a very small number" (Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press/The Oak Ridger, Jan. 16).