July 28, 2004
By Bill Draper
Associated Press Writer
FORT LEAVENWORTH -- A nuclear accident is more likely than a terrorist attack to expose U.S. residents to radiation, officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday as they prepared for a massive three-day exercise dubbed "Ruby Slippers."
More than 130 EPA experts are staging a mock radiological emergency this week in and around Fort Leavenworth. For many, this is the first such exercise they've experienced at a time when terrorism -- especially the possible use of radioactive materials in a so-called "dirty bomb" -- weighs heavy on the national psyche.
But Jeff Holmstead, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, said a nuclear accident -- such as a nuclear-powered satellite falling from the sky -- has much greater potential for widespread harm than a dirty bomb.
The exercise scenario is similar to an incident in 1978 in which a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite, Cosmos 954, fell out of orbit and disintegrated over Canada, spreading radioactive materials over 48,000 square miles in the Northwest Territories.
While such a scenario seems far-fetched, Holmstead said, "these sorts of things have the potential to be more of a threat than dirty bombs."
In addition to EPA employees from across the country, high-tech radioactivity equipment such as a mobile environmental radiation laboratory, or MERL, has been deployed to Fort Leavenworth.
Greg Dempsey, an EPA radiological response team commander from Las Vegas, said the lab next will be taken to Edison, N.J., where it will be used during the Republican National Convention 30 miles up the road in New York City.
A smaller lab with similar radioactivity-sensing and analyzing equipment is being used in Boston for the Democratic convention, he said.
Holmstead said the lessons from the exercises this week can be used anywhere a radiological emergency occurs. EPA officials in the Kansas City area and Washington also are taking part in the drills, which took more than a year to plan out.
Dempsey said the satellite scenario envisions far more radioactive materials than a terrorist could ever accumulate.
"This is way above what they could get hold of, short of a nuclear weapon," he said.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/9256316.htm