Pipe Bomb At NukePlant: Plant Now on Lockdown:
VIDEO UPDATE: The Arizona nuclear plant, where an employee was stopped coming to work with a pipe bomb, is on lockdown. There have been statements that there was no domestic terrorism, but how often does a worker at a nuclear plant bring a pipe bomb to work? Any worker, for that matter.
No word on the background of the possessor of the bomb.
VIDEO: Explosive Device Found Outside Nuclear Facility‘
More from CNN:
A contract employee of an Arizona nuclear plant was stopped at a plant entrance Friday with an explosive device in his truck, officials told CNN. The capped pipe was found in the truck bed during a regular security search outside the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station — the country’s largest nuclear plant. developing story
A worker stopped outside the nation’s largest nuclear generating plant with an explosive device has no apparent link to terrorism, a Maricopa County sheriff’s official said.
A pipe bomb was discovered in the back of a contractor worker’s pickup truck outside the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Wintersberg, about 35 miles west of Phoenix, triggering a lockdown and investigation, according Capt. Paul Chagolla with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
A local look at the incident was provided by Arizona Republic:
A suspicious item seized Friday morning from the truck of a contract worker at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station was an apparent pipe bomb, plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. said.
The worker has been detained and questioned.
The plant declared an “unusual event†and locked down the facility in response. The plant has several hundred contract workers on site working on upgrades.
Click for VIDEO from CNN: Explosive Device Found Outside Nuclear Facility
The explosive device was described as a small capped pipe that contained suspicious residue, Chagolla said.
There’s no information to indicate that there’s domestic terrorism at hand,” Chagolla said.
It was in plain view with no effort to conceal it, Chagolla said.
Chagolla said the bomb squad rendered the device safe and that investigators were interviewing the worker.
“It is an out-of-state subcontractor who resides in Phoenix in an apartment complex,” Chagolla said. He said the man was originally from South Carolina.
In Washington, the Department of Homeland Security said there was no known terrorism link to the incident, and that the FBI and local law enforcement were leading the investigation.
NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the worker was stopped and detained at the entrance of the plant Friday morning.
Security officials immediately launched an investigation and put the nuclear station on lockdown, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving the facility.
When the residue couldn’t be identified immediately, plant operators notified the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.So the plant is now under lockdown and no word still on the background of the person attempting to access the nuclear plants’ grounds with a pipe bomb.
Nuclear plants and pipe bombs are an explosive recipe for disaster.
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