Implementation of the Material Protection, Control and Accounting Operations Monitoring System at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute - Russian Academy of Sciences

The Material Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC&A) Program has been working since 1994 with nuclear sites in Russia to upgrade the physical protection (PP) and material control and accounting (MC&A) functions at facilities containing weapons usable nuclear material. In early 2001, the MPC&A program initiated the MPC&A Operations Monitoring (MOM) Project to monitor facilities with completed MPC&A upgrades to provide increased confidence that personnel are present and vigilant, provide confidence that security procedures are being properly performed and provide additional assurance that nuclear materials have not been stolen. The MOM project began as a pilot project at the Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) and a MOM system was successfully installed in October 2001. Following the success of the MEPhI pilot project, the MPC&A Program expanded the installation of MOM systems to other Russian facilities, including the Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Building 135 at the Kurchatov Institute (KI), and the Nuclear Physics Institute (NPI) in Tomsk. MOM systems are in the process of being installed at KI (Buildings 114, 116 and 128), the Sevmash Shipbuilding Company (Sevmash), and the Petersburg Nuclear Power Institute (PNPI). This paper will focus on the design and installation of a MOM system at PNPI. The objectives of the MOM system and the design philosophy adopted will be described. The important issue of information security of the data generated by the MOM system will be addressed. The results of a study performed to determine the sensitivity of the MOM data and the appropriate level of protection will be presented. Finally potential expansion of the MOM system at PNPI will be described.