transport of dangerous goods and risk management - Kirilo Savić

TRANSPORT OF DANGEROUS GOODS AND RISK MANAGEMENT 2432. To inflict economic damage upon those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals; and 3. Toreveal the horrors and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors. 1In May 2006 the Guardian give details of the campaign by ALF against firms working for Oxford University, whichALF claims have caused more than 6 million pounds of damage. A major contractor of a new research laboratoryhas withdrawn from working for Oxford University because of fears of harassment and intimidation by animal rightextremists. In 1991, FBI named ALF as domestic terroristic threat.In the last few years, FBI have arrested a couple of members of ecoterroristc groups. Current FBI director, RobertMueller said one of the Bureau’s “highest domestic terrorism priorities” is prosecuting people who commit crimes“in the name of animal rights or the environment” (Janofsky, 2006).VULNERABLE RESOURCESCritical infrastructure is a term that is receiving increasing attention. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 and theUSA Patriot Act define critical infrastructure as “systems and assets ... so vital to the United States that theincapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, nationaleconomic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters” (Public Law 107-56(e)).Some of these systems include food, water, agriculture, health and emergency services, energy (electrical, gas andoil, dams), transportation (air, road, rail, ports, waterways), information and telecommunications, banking andfinance, postal and shipping, and national monuments and icons. This paper focuses on the water and energysector’s critical infrastructure.Scarcity and prestige of the targeted resource, its physical location, its vulnerability to attack and capacity forregeneration are the key determinants to assess the possibility of an environmental assault. Resources that arerelatively inaccessible without special equipment or are heavily guarded are less attractive to terrorists. Waterresources, as renewable resources, are also attractive to terrorists, because there is no substitute for water - it is anirreplaceable resource. Greater economic value, often linked to environmental scarcity makes a resource veryattractive.This paper focuses on the water and energy sector’s critical infrastructure.Water resourcesThe importance of freshwater and water infrastructure to human and ecosystem health and to the smoothfunctioning of a commercial and industrial economy makes water and water systems targets for terrorism. Water isa fundamental resource for human and economic welfare and modern society depends on complex, interconnectedwater infrastructure to provide reliable safe water supplies and to remove and treat wastewater. The chance thatterrorists will strike at water systems is real; indeed, there is a long history of such attacks.Water resource sites are also attractive to environmental terrorists because there is no substitute for water - it is avitally necessary resource. Whether its lack is due to a physical supply interruption or, a community of any size thatlacks fresh water will suffer greatly. Furthermore, a community does not have to lack water to suffer. Too muchwater at the wrong time in the form of a flood can cause greater damage, and flooding towns and settlements is atime-tested tactic in warfare.As an example of the economic and human chaos even moderate disruption or contamination might cause, anoutbreak of Cryptosporidium in Milwaukee in 1993 killed over a hundred people, affected the health of over400,000 more (MacKenzie et al., 1994; Smith, 1994) and cost millions in lost wages and productivity.1 Animal Liberation Front. Available at: animalliberationfront.com