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Physical Security SystemsAfter the 9/11 terrorist attacks, NNSA took steps to protect its critical facilities from vehicle bombs and strengthened its facilities against attacks. NNSA has begun consolidating its nuclear weapons material which reduces the number of targets to be protected. It has hardened its storage vaults and improved facility configurations, and installed anti-air, anti-vehicle, and anti-personnel capabilities. NNSA also implemented a “denial” strategy to interdict and destroy an enemy’s access to a nuclear weapon or large stores of special nuclear material. And it provided back-up “recapture and recovery” strategies that do not allow an adversary to escape from an NNSA site with special nuclear material. NNSA remains focused on deploying technology-based solutions, as force multipliers, to improve site defenses, including the critical aspects of detection, assessment, delay, and response. Its forces have tactical control over wider areas surrounding nuclear materials storage and processing facilities. In addition to state of the art technology, sites have highly effective low technology measures to upgrade physical security features. NNSA uses, for example, concrete blocks, razor-wire barriers, and steel-plated fighting positions to upgrade its physical security features. It has eliminated public access to roads near special nuclear material facilities and installed physical barriers around key entrances to sites and critical facilities to protect against vehicle bombs and to delay vehicle and personnel movement. Physical barriers have also been installed around key approaches to sites and critical facilities to provide increased standoff distances and to delay vehicle and personnel movement. NNSA continues to identify and evaluate technology solutions that will enable its forces to improve the confidence in protective strategies while reducing the overall costs of security. NNSA instituted an “enterprise” approach to future technology deployment. Focused first on wireless technology, an NNSA-sponsored “Motomesh Enterprise” task will develop the deployment framework documentation required for every NNSA site, leaving the remaining, more site specific documentation for each plant, laboratory, or site to develop. This enterprise-wide effort also guarantees a high degree of standardization across NNSA for wireless security deployments, ensures requisite performance standards are achieved and minimizes maintenance, modifications, and software update costs in the future. |