Security breach at US nuclear weapons plant prompts personnel changes

Knox News : In the wake of a break-in at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, security contractor WSI Oak Ridge is making some personnel changes, including replacing its general manager, Lee Brooks. On 28 July, three people—one of them an octogenarian nun—allegedly cut through perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium is stored. Before being caught by security, the intruders spray-painted messages and threw human blood on the storehouse’s walls. In a statement released Friday night, Energy Secretary Steven Chu called the break-in at Y-12 “unacceptable” and a “deeply troubling breach” of security. The new acting general manager of the complex is Steven Hafner, a senior vice president of WSI who had been working on a federal project in Washington State.