Newspapers have their lowest readership on Saturdays and their highest readership on Sundays, so if you are a savvy media professional and your client has some bad news, make sure that it lands in the Saturday paper. If you are really good, make sure that several bad articles land in the SAME Saturday paper.
The APS media guy must be a genius, because these two stories will have much less impact on Saturday than they would have had on Sunday. This is the lead story in Saturday's Republic.
Federal authorities are accusing a former engineer at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station of illegally taking software codes to Iran and downloading details of control rooms, reactors and designs of the nation's largest nuclear plant.
Officers arrested Mohammad "Mo" Alavi, 49, in Los Angeles this month and charged him with one count of violating a trade embargo, which prohibits Americans from exporting goods and services to Iran.
Golly, who would have thought that an Iranian guy named Mohammed who worked at the Nation's largest Nuclear Power Plant might, you know, take stuff.
Of course, Palo Verde is rated as the lowest performing Nuclear Plant in the nation. So when "Mo" shows the software to his Iranian buddies, you know what they are going to say..."D'oh."
Well, APS can look on the bright side. The good news about the security breach at Palo Verde, is that it kept this story off the front page.
Pinnacle West Capital Corp. reported that Chairman Bill Post was paid $7.5 million in total compensation in 2006, according to papers filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The story contains this little paragraph that drives regulators crazy.
The company has reported substantial earnings increase, but it grapples with issues such as worker performance at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, located about 50 miles west of Phoenix. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has downgraded Palo Verde to the rank of country's most monitored nuclear power plant.
What a nice combination: $7.5 million in annual compensation and substantial earnings increase combined with poor performance. The article fails to point out one other issue...the company is seeking a rate increase at the Corporation Commission.
Greg,
I was working all day - just read the Saturday newspaper - yes, I read both stories about APS.
Talk about the luck of the Irish!
Notice the headline: "Palo Verde software is breached" -
not: "National security breached"
not: "Palo Verde secrets stolen"
When I saw the headline, I thought, "oh, somebody, did a 'no-no' at the plant - but when I read the article - well, let's say I was furious.
Notice the side bar heading - "Ex-worker used it during trip to Iran, officials say." What is he doing using Palo Verde software in Iran who is trying to build a nuclear reactor!!!
Remember the guy from AZ who changed his name in the Navy and gave away 'secrets' and how that was 'no big deal' - hello, it was and is a big deal now!
Give me a break!
We don't need to worry about terrorists coming here - we have an incompotent government and an incompotent security systems!
And we won't talk about the salary of Mr. Post who wants more of my utility dollars. I think it is time to buy one stock of Pinnacle West and go and complain!
ron
Posted by: ron | April 21, 2007 at 09:38 PM
Greg, you wrote, "Of course, Palo Verde is rated as the lowest performing Nuclear Plant in the nation."
Greg, you missed an important clarifying clause as it relates to 'lowest performing'.
The sentence should read thus: "Of course, Palo Verde is rated the lowest performing Nuclear Plant in relation to safety standards in the nation."
The plant has been out of compliance with federal standards related to safety from its first day of operaton and currently is rated in the worst category.
We are not talking about kwh performance- we are talking about safety performance - and most of us live downwind from it.
Posted by: ron | April 21, 2007 at 11:05 PM
Once again the news media has blown the story out of proportion. The software in question was training software provided by a vendor. It was not used to run the plant. The breach did not occur at the plant. As best I can tell from the story, the breach occurred at the vendor site.
Note that the person in question was a trainer for APS at Palo Verde for years. He’s got a whole lot more in his head about the actual operation than is contained in the training software he downloaded. Apparently he was trying to peddle something. Exactly what we don’t know.
Posted by: Scott Gustafson | April 22, 2007 at 10:46 PM