From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Protecting Water and Wastewater Facilities that House Hazardous Chemicals Description: Facilities that produce, use, or store hazardous chemicals can be dangerous to the communities where they are found, and could become targets of terrorists looking to inflict mass casualties and damage. In the United States, there are hundreds of thousands of these facilities, which include public water systems and wastewater treatment works. What safeguards are in place to protect communities from the risks these water facilities could potentially pose? We talk with GAO's Nathan Anderson, an expert on critical infrastructure protection and a director in our Homeland Security and Justice Team. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-722, Chemical Security: DHS Could Use Available Data to Better Plan Outreach to Facilities Excluded from Anti-Terrorism Standards Released: September 2020 [Intro Music] [Nathan Anderson:] What we're really looking at here are risks that are associated with the unlawful use of chemicals of interest, such as chlorine. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office--I'm Holly Hobbs. Facilities that produce, use, or store hazardous chemicals can be dangerous to the communities where they are found, and could become targets for terrorists looking to inflict mass casualties and damage. In the United States, there are hundreds of thousands of these facilities, which include public water systems and wastewater treatment works. What safeguards are in place to protect communities from the risks these water facilities could potentially pose? Today we talk with GAO's Nathan Anderson, an expert on critical infrastructure protection and a director in our Homeland Security and Justice Team. Thank you for joining us Nathan! [Nathan Anderson:] Thanks for having me, Holly. [Holly Hobbs:] So Nathan, your report looks specifically at public water systems and waste water treatment works. These seems like fairly common facilities. What risks do they pose to the communities where they're located? [Nathan Anderson:] Well, you know, it's important to unpack the term 'risk' in this context. What we're really looking at here are risks that are associated with the unlawful use of chemicals of interest, such as chlorine. And I want to provide a couple of illustrative examples of how such chemicals can be used. In April 2018, there were some attacks using chlorine in Syria. And these attacks resulted in dozens of deaths, and hundreds of injuries. In November of last year, 2019, there was an accidental explosion at a waterfront in a Texas chemical plant that manufactured butadiene, resulting in mandatory evacuations for thousands of residents within a 4 mile radius. These are the situations that we're trying to avoid. [Holly Hobbs:] And, your report also talks about how public water systems and wastewater treatment facilities are not covered by Department of Homeland Security's chemical security program. Who then is monitoring and assessing the risks at these facilities? [Nathan Anderson:] Not all of these facilities have chemicals of interest that may be dangerous but there are some. So there's like 1,100 public water systems in the country, 500 wastewater treatment plants, as well, that have enough chemicals that would trigger reviews by the Department of Homeland Security. And the program that would do those reviews is the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards Program. Now, the facilities I just spoke to are technically exempted by law. But the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has several programs that do pertain to wastewater facilities and other water treatment works. The 2 programs are the Americas Water Infrastructure Act and the Risk Management Program. Now, both of these programs have certain aspects to their functioning that do cover some security measures that the Department of Homeland Security would otherwise look at. But not all. [Holly Hobbs:] So, it sounds like we found gaps in the programs that cover these facilities. Right? [Nathan Anderson:] Ah, yes we did. The 2 EPA programs, like I said, they do contain some of those requirements that align with the Department of Homeland Security's chemical security programs, but not all of them. And it is important to note that neither EPA program focuses exclusively on chemical security like the DHS program does. And so, some might have some requirements in place that restrict access to a facility, but it's not necessarily restricting access from the standpoint of like an anti-terrorism requirement such as background checks. [Holly Hobbs:] And your report is looking at the outreach DHS conducts at these facilities. Why did so many facilities with hazardous chemicals not receive outreach visits from DHS? [Nathan Anderson:] Yeah, and that's a very important question, and thanks for asking it--because the Department of Homeland Security does have a program that conducts voluntary assessment throughout the critical infrastructure structures that exist. So, again, these are voluntary. The companies and the sectors that may be vulnerable do not necessarily have to comply but it's like a vulnerability scanning. They can reach out to DHS and DHS can reach out to them and say, look here's a better way of doing business to ensure that your security operations are as good as they possibly can be. And what we found is that while the Department of Homeland Security has this program and does reach out to a number of different critical infrastructure sectors, they weren't targeting their efforts toward those facilities within the water and wastewater sectors that might actually be vulnerable. [Music] [Holly Hobbs:] So, it sounds like there are a large number of water and wastewater facilities that house hazardous chemicals located in U.S. communities, and that the federal government plays an important role in assessing the risks these facilities might pose to residents in order to keep them safe. But that the chemical security program overseeing these facilities has some gaps. Nathan, did we make any recommendations to improve these programs? [Nathan Anderson:] We found that the Department of Homeland Security had not assessed available EPA information that identified water and wastewater facilities that do have potentially dangerous amounts of hazardous chemicals. So, we recommended that the Department of Homeland Security use this information to essentially triage its own outreach to public water systems and wastewater treatment works and facilities. And, importantly, the Department of Homeland Security agreed to implement our recommendation. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question--what is the bottom line of this report? [Nathan Anderson:] The bottom line of this report is that a potential gap does exist in chemical facility security for certain water and wastewater facilities, and this gap could be addressed in part by directing the Department of Homeland Security in their expertise to conduct vulnerability assessments at those facilities that do have potential dangerous quantities of dangerous chemicals. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Nathan Anderson discussing his new report on chemical security at water and wastewater facilities. Thank you for your time Nathan! [Nathan Anderson:] Thank you very much, Holly! 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