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!

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. And make sure you
leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing.
For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.