Materials and Plant Protection Standards: Revisited

Approximately a year and half ago Nuclear Materials Management, described the Atomic Energy Commission's program for enhancing the protection of licensee plants and the material contained therein. Regulatory issues standard specifications, performance criteria and voluntary guides the latter of which identify acceptable means for the implementation of requirements of AEC rules, regulations and orders. Shortly before the Spring 1973 article was written, Regulatory had published a number of proposed, comprehensive changes to Title 10 Part 50, 70, and 73 of the Code of Federal Regulations. These proposed amendments were to make sweeping changes to the required protection of licensed nuclear plants from acts of sabotage and the protection of special nuclear materials both at fixed sites and in transit from acts of theft. The amendments also established standard specifications for the frequency and quality of physical inventories taken to verify the validity of material accounting records. In November of 1973 these proposed rules were issued as effective amendments. While the organization and the provisions of the effective amendments and, in some cases, the detailed requirements, were modified to reflect public comments, the concepts embodied in the original proposed rules essentially were unchanged in the final effective rule.