Visitors and employees are checked more thoroughly. Cameras, cell phones and electronic equipment are considered contraband unless employees have been cleared to use them.

"I would argue we were very secure before," said Rick Ford, a DOE spokesman at the site. "We've done some things to make the site less accessible."

On the day after the attacks, cars waited in line for miles and hours at the gates of Fort Gordon as security personnel checked identification and searched each vehicle. ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/FILE

Fewer people are granted permission to visit the site, and tours cover less ground. On a recent tour of the site for media and anti-nuclear activists, visitors were limited to the welcome area and the Defense Waste Processing Facility.

The rest of the tour was confined to a bus.

As they peered through the bus windows, the activists were disappointed to find the future site of a controversial mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel fabrication plant obscured by trees.

One activist complained that access to the location has been granted to French foreign nationals working on the MOX project and to members of the Aiken-area Citizens Advisory Board - private citizens without security clearances.

Public access to information about SRS has been reduced, too. The Department of Energy has shut down some Web pages and removed information from the reading room of the library at USC Aiken

But Sept. 11 is only part of the reason for the increased security.

"We also have had headquarters tighten up in the wake of lawsuits by the governor and others," Mr. Ford said.

Gov. Jim Hodges sued the department, seeking an injunction against plutonium shipments to SRS. He said he feared South Carolina would become the nation's "dumping ground."

He threatened a blockade and used the state patrol to conduct exercises outside the site's New Ellenton gates.

The Energy Department said the governor's posturing only increased the potential for terrorism at the site.

Bill Taylor, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said the site already had most of the heavy equipment and weaponry needed to prevent a siege, but he did not elaborate.

FORT GORDON security was at its highest level in the wake of the attacks, said Marla Jones, a spokeswoman at the Army post's public affairs office.

Heightened security translated into long lines of traffic backed up for miles on Jimmie Dyess Parkway the morning after the attacks. There were two-hour delays as security personnel checked individual IDs and searched each vehicle.

Army Reserve units were activated, and reservists reported to Fort Gordon to assist with security. The gates are still manned by security forces, and IDs and vehicles without a Department of Defense sticker are inspected.

An inside perimeter has been established around sensitive military areas. Access is limited to active government employees who work inside the perimeter. A special post sticker is required to enter this part of the post during times of heightened security.

Neighbors Editor Ed Scott contributed to this report.

Reach Eric Williamson at (803) 279-6895 or eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com.