Department of Homeland Security sends letters to high-risk facilities

The Department of Homeland Security has preliminarily labeled more than 200 chemical facilities, including university laboratories, at highest risk for a potential terrorist attack. DHS has winnowed this number from a pool of about 7,000 facilities under review in its chemical plant security program.

The agency had identified these facilities from a larger pool of 32,000 and ranked them according to a four-tier system. The highest risk facilities will be subject to the most stringent federal regulation and may be fined for noncompliance or even shuttered (C&EN, April 9, 2007, page 13). For now, the designation by DHS means that these facilities must complete a more detailed security and vulnerability assessment.

Many companies with high-risk facilities are concerned about the ranking. Jeff Gunnulfsen, senior manager of government relations for the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA), a trade group, tells C&EN that members have been ringing his phone off the hook. He says he has had to remind them that these rankings are preliminary and that final rankings have yet to be determined.

C&EN has learned from several sources the breakdown of the notified facilities into the four-tier system: 219 in tier 1, the highest risk level; 756 in tier 2; and 1,712 and 4,319 in tiers 3 and 4, respectively. DHS will neither confirm this exact breakdown of the preliminary tier rankings nor release the names of any of the facilities. ...