WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Homeland Security Department is undertaking a pilot program aimed at countering the threat of a small-vessel attack on the nation's ports, an official told Global Security Newswire last week (see GSN, July 24).
(Jul. 27) -
Boats docked at a marina in San Diego, Calif. The United States has launched a new effort to protect its ports from small vessel attacks, an official said last week (Don Emmert/Getty Images).
The agency's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has launched a "West Coast Maritime Pilot" effort, based in San Diego and Washington state's Puget Sound region.
The program is slated to deploy and evaluate radiation and nuclear detection equipment, to include human-portable and mobile, or boat-mounted, systems, according to Chris Inman, the detection office director for the San Diego portion of the effort.
Program officials will develop a regional maritime concept of operations and provide naval-specific training on nuclear detection equipment, he said. It also will "identify any gaps that may still be remaining in that maritime architecture," Inman said.
National concern about the threats posed by small naval vessels appears to be on the rise.
Bethann Rooney, manager of port security for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, sees a small-vessel attack as the greatest security risk facing the nation's ports today.
"For us, we've essentially got a single choke point that all deep draft vessels need to pass," she said during a July 10 panel discussion at the Center for National Policy. "If that choke point is compromised by a small vessel attack ... it will essentially shut down the entire port of New York and New Jersey."
The dangers posed by small vessels were vigorously examined in the wake of the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000, when a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer and blew up. The threat gained renewed attention last November with the attack on Mumbai, India, where a group of terrorists used small fishing vessels to gain access to the city.
The Homeland Security Department in April released the Small Vessel Security Strategy . The document described the "immense" challenge of distinguishing between legitimate vessel operators and those engaged in illicit activities. There are nearly 13 million registered recreational vessels in the United States, 82,000 fishing vessels and 100,000 other commercial small vessels, according to the DHS publication.
"This pilot is meant to directly support the small vessels security strategy," Inman told GSN in a Thursday telephone interview. He defined a small vessel as any craft that weighs less than 300 tons, ranging from a tuna boat to a small sailboat or a jet ski.
The detection office chose San Diego in part because it is home to a Joint Harbor Operations Center, which combines different agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S Customs and Border Protection.
It also offers state-of-the-art technology to coordinate communication, Elaine Jennings, the director of planning, preparedness and emerging threats for the California Emergency Management Agency, told GSN in a Sunday telephone interview. The agency oversees homeland security for the country's most populous state.
There are four such operations facilities in the United States, built in response to the Safe Port Act of 2006. The other three are in Seattle; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Norfolk, Va.
San Diego was picked because it also has an expansive international water border and large recreational boating community, Jennings said.
That portion of the pilot effort cost $2.5 million in fiscal 2009, according to Kimberly Koeppel, a spokeswoman for the detection office. An additional $2 million will be spent on equipment procurement, she said. Inman speculated the final budget numbers for fiscal 2010 "will be similar."
The California piece of the maritime pilot program kicked off in February and will wrap up at the end of 2010, according to Inman. The Puget Sound region effort was announced in September 2007 and is "about a year ahead," he said.
In all, 16 state and federal agencies are involved in the effort, including the FBI, the California Radiologic Health Branch and the San Diego Harbor Police.
The detection office will deploy more than 200 personal radiation detectors and roughly 12 isotope identification devices to California law enforcement officials this fall, according to Inman. Training will last through September and October.
Koeppel declined to reveal the unit cost of either system.
The San Diego project also will employ some form of backpack radiation detection technology, Inman said. However, "the details about how many we'd like to procure, or which ones we'd like to procure, or how we would like to utilize them, are still in development," he said.
The Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency this fall will stage a test campaign focused on backpack technologies, he said. After the tests are completed, the DHS detection office will decide which backpack systems it will employ, Inman told GSN.
Backpack technology is bigger than handheld detection devices and therefore boasts a larger sensor with better sensitivity, according to Inman.
"It's a nice way for someone to be able to do a wide-area search," he said, noting the capability could be useful for marina searches.
Most backpacks are "very low-profile devices," Inman added. "You wouldn't really notice that it's someone searching an area if they walked by you wearing one of these things. You don't have to swing a wand," he said.
Next February the pilot program will perform a demonstration of boat-mounted systems in its "Dolphin" test campaign, Inman said. That exercise will focus solely on boat-mounted systems, he said, noting that such a system could be large and permanently attached to a craft or a backpack strapped to the boat.
In the exercise, participants will operate a boat with a radioactive "source." Officials will run their craft past the boat and collect data on the performance of different systems.
The equipment lists for that exercise have not yet been finalized, according to Koeppel.
The maritime pilot program also will contribute to California's statewide "Golden Guardian" test next year, Jennings said. The annual exercise examines the state's emergency capabilities to respond to or recover from a potential terrorist attack or catastrophic natural disaster, according to the Governor's Office of Homeland Security Web site.
The 2008 scenario was a simulated, catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault, while this year's exercise will focus on terrorist activity.
The 2010 scenario will focus on port and maritime operations, Jennings said, though state officials are still determining what the final exercise situation will be.
Rooney, the New York-New Jersey Port Authority official, said even attacks of limited size can have serious consequences.
Risk assessments conducted by the federal government in the wake of Sept. 11 have focused on "the totality of the facility [but] you don't need to lose an entire facility to have a catastrophic impact," she said.
Rooney advocated that homeland security officials "move from strategies that have been written on piece of paper and begin to implement the strategies we've identified, in this case to deal with the small-vessel security threat."
At the same time, officials involved in the maritime pilot should be careful not to "overestimate" the capabilities of various nuclear-detection devices, Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told GSN today in a telephone interview.
He suggested that technology be incorporated into a broader "community watch" approach to port security.
"When it comes to the waterfront, the best assets we have are the eyes and ears of the folks on the waterfront," Flynn said. "Most of this work is more a challenge of choreography than technology."
Once the West Coast maritime pilot effort has wrapped up, the detection office will deliver a "utility assessment" to state officials that will provide the results of the various exercises, the cost of maintaining the detection systems, and the price tag for securing additional devices for full deployment, according to Inman.
"If they tell us that, 'Yes, this is something we want to take on, we're committed to using and maintaining the equipment,' we will leave this [test] equipment behind" for operational use, he said.
Inman said the local jurisdictions could apply for grant funds to purchase the devices through the Homeland Security Department's Urban Area Security Initiative and other federal programs.
Jennings said the state will be involved in the discussions with local officials over whether to procure the equipment.