PENNSYLVANIA Barrier protection loosens

HARRISBURG (AP) -- State officials have softened a requirement that heavy gates and barriers be installed to keep terrorists away from industrial explosives at quarries and mines.
Instead of erecting a ring of costly fencing to cut off vehicle access, for example, the manufacturers and users of explosives want to take advantage of natural barriers, such as heavy woods, at storage sites.
A settlement last month ended a lawsuit filed by nine businesses and industrial associations that complained that Pennsylvania regulations passed in June were unfair and would drive some of them out of business.
The settlement allows a committee of state and federal officials and industry representatives to recommend and review alternative security proposals to the Department of Environmental Protection, which licenses the storage, handling and use of industrial explosives.
The regulations came about after state police investigating an explosives theft in Somerset County in 2003 found that teenagers had ripped the door off a storage container by chaining the lock to their vehicle. Police, surprised that state and federal law did not require much more than locks on a storage container, alerted state homeland security officials and the DEP.
The 500 pounds of explosives were found unused later in the woods by a horseback rider.