PROTECTING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: A Shared Responsibility

Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM

Filling out a Top Screen will either place a facility in the preliminary tier or exclude them from the regulation altogether. If placed in the preliminary tier, DHS will notify the facility that they need to complete a Security Vulnerability Analysis (SVA).

An SVA will assess the security measures in place to mitigate or reduce the likelihood of success of an attack on an asset. The results of the analysis will then determine if that facility is labeled as high-risk.

The high-risk final tier facilities will need to complete a Site Security Plan (SSP), which captures specific security measures the facility must implement to meet the risk-based performance standards.

“We have the impression that it is an easy tool to use, and we hear from the industry that their objective by logging on early and taking the Top Screen is to get answers as early as possible,” Kelliher says.

Jim Schellhorn, director of environmental health, safety and security for Terra Industries Inc., Sioux City, Iowa, a nitrogen products manufacturer, says Terra has an active facility security program that includes protection of ammonium nitrate (which could be used to make a bomb).

He says that Terra is active in efforts to influence security policy and requirements within the fertilizer industry, and that they support reasonable, risk-based security requirements.

This program has prepared them for the Top Screen that DHS is requiring, and they have completed it at several of their facilities. Schellhorn says it was easy to use for the most part, but that they are concerned that smaller distribution and retail operations may have a more difficult time with compliance, attributing to the comments Kelliher says DHS already received.

Terra also wants consistent regulation across the United States, because as it is now, only Oklahoma, New York, Texas, South Carolina, California, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada and Maryland regulate ammonium nitrate.

H.R. 1680, the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007 bill would authorize the regulation of the sale of ammonium nitrate, applying to any ammonium nitrate with a minimum of 33 percent nitrogen. As of press time, the bill had passed in the House, but not in the Senate.

“It's our opinion that this legislation is not going to have a significant downside for future use of ammonium nitrate in agriculture,” Schellhorn says.

Richard Gupton, vice president of Legislative Policy and Counsel for the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA), says that as an active member of the Chemical Sector Coordinating Council, the ARA is supportive of the tier system DHS is providing.

Similar to the requests of the propane industry and Terra, Gupton says that the ARA recommended that DHS remove the chemical urea off of Appendix A. He says that it poses no security risk on its own, and that it needs to be combined with other products such as nitric acid.

The ARA, along with Terra, subscribe to a required SVA that addresses the unique characteristics of Ag Retailers. Their vulnerability index, based on the SVA results, finds that 83 percent of facilities have low security vulnerabilities, 17 percent have medium vulnerabilities and zero percent have high vulnerabilities.

“We're confident that those retailers that would have to go through DHS security regulations would be screened out and not be considered a high-risk facility,” he says.

Both Kelliher and Schellhorn are looking forward to the possible results of this new endeavor.

“A lot of the facilities that we are expecting to work with are what I consider good corporate citizens when it comes to security. And we'd like to give credit where credit is due for a security facility's performance,” Kelliher says.

The comments of Marybeth Kelliher, Jim Schellhorn and Richard Gupton are quoted with permission from a Webinar sponsored by Pike & Fischer, a provider of business, legal and regulatory information covering multiple areas including the agricultural chemical and fertilizer industry. The Webinar is available at www.pf.com.
— Stephanie Silk

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