PHOENIX — Security officials at the nation’s largest nuclear power plant detained a contract worker with a small explosive device in the back of his pickup truck Friday, authorities said.
In Washington, the Department of Homeland Security said there was no known terrorism link to the incident, and that the FBI and local law enforcement were leading the investigation.
The worker was stopped and detained at the entrance of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, about a half mile from the containment domes where the plant’s nuclear material is stored, spokesman Jim McDonald said. Security officials then put the nuclear station on lockdown, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving the facility.
Authorities described the device as a six-inch capped explosive made of galvanized pipe that contained suspicious residue. Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said it was likely homemade.
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“If this thing went off in the bed of the truck, it certainly would put a hole in it,” Mangan said. “It was rather crude in construction, but it could certainly injure somebody.”
Capt. Paul Chagolla with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said the pipe was not hidden in the back of the worker’s truck.
Sheriff’s officials rendered the device safe and investigators were interviewing the worker. Chagolla said the man was originally from South Carolina.
“Our Security personnel acted cautiously and appropriately, demonstrating that our security process and procedures work as designed,” said Randy Edington, the chief nuclear officer for plant operator Arizona Public Service Co., in a statement.
The incident was considered an “unusual event” — the lowest of four emergencies the plant can declare, said Jim Melfi, an inspector with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
There was no threat to the public and the station was operating normally, said Palo Verde spokesman Jim McDonald. McDonald wouldn’t say which company employed the worker.
He said everyone who has access to the plant must submit to a background check.
Workers must pass through two security checkpoints to get inside one of the plant’s three containment domes, which house the radioactive nuclear material. One of the checkpoints includes an automated system that sniffs workers for the presence of bomb-making materials, McDonald said.
Palo Verde, operated by Arizona Public Service Co., is the nation’s largest nuclear power plant both in size and capacity. Located in Wintersburg about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, the plant supplies electricity to about 4 million customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.
