[ RadSafe ] Radiation Monitoring at Ports, cont'd.

[Cehn at aol.com]

May 8, 2005
U.S. to Spend Billions More to Alter Security  Systems
By _ERIC LIPTON_ (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=ERIC 
LIPTON&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=ERIC LIPTON&inline=nyt-per)  , NY 
Times
 


 
WASHINGTON, May 7 - After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening  
devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the  
federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the antiterrorism  
equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to  operate. 
Many of the monitoring tools - intended to detect guns, explosives, and  
nuclear and biological weapons - were bought during the blitz in security  
spending after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 
In its effort to create a virtual shield around America, the Department of  
Homeland Security now plans to spend billions of dollars more. Although some  
changes are being made because of technology that has emerged in the last 
couple  of years, many of them are planned because devices currently in use have 
done  little to improve the nation's security, according to a review of agency  
documents and interviews with federal officials and outside experts. 
"Everyone was standing in line with their silver bullets to make us more  
secure after Sept. 11," said Randall J. Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel and  
former government adviser on scientific issues. "We bought a lot of stuff off  
the shelf that wasn't effective." 
Among the problems:  
¶Radiation monitors at ports and borders that cannot differentiate between  
radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from  
everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile. 
¶Air-monitoring equipment in major cities that is only marginally effective  
because not enough detectors were deployed and were sometimes not properly  
calibrated or installed. They also do not produce results for up to 36 hours -  
long after a biological attack would potentially infect thousands of people. 
¶Passenger-screening equipment at airports that auditors have found is no  
more likely than before federal screeners took over to detect whether someone is 
 trying to carry a weapon or a bomb aboard a plane. 
¶Postal Service machines that test only a small percentage of mail and look  
for anthrax but no other biological agents. 
*** 
Radiation at Seaports 
One after another, trucks stuffed with cargo like olives from Spain, birdseed 
 from Ethiopia, olive oil from France and carpets from India line up at the 
Port  Newark Container Terminal, approaching what looks like an E-ZPass toll 
gate. 
In minutes, they will fan out across the nation. But first, they pass through 
 the gate, called a radiation portal monitor, which sounds an alarm if it 
detects  a nuclear weapon or radioactive material that could be used to make a 
"dirty  bomb," a crude nuclear device that causes damage by widely spreading low 
levels  of radiation. 
Heralded as "highly sophisticated" when they were introduced, the devices  
have proven to be hardly that. 
The portal-monitor technology has been used for decades by the scrap metal  
industry. Customs officials at Newark have nicknamed the devices "dumb 
sensors,"  because they cannot discern the source of the radiation. That means benign 
items  that naturally emit radioactivity - including cat litter, ceramic tile, 
granite,  porcelain toilets, even bananas - can set off the monitors. 
Alarms occurred so frequently when the monitors were first installed that  
customs officials turned down their sensitivity. But that increased the risk  
that a real threat, like the highly enriched uranium used in nuclear bombs,  
could go undetected because it emits only a small amount of radiation or perhaps  
none if it is intentionally shielded. 
"It was certainly a compromise in terms of absolute capacity to detect  
threats," said Mr. Milowic, the customs official. 
The port's follow-up system, handheld devices that are supposed to determine  
what set off an alarm, is also seriously flawed. Tests conducted in 2003 by 
Los  Alamos National Laboratory found that the handheld machines, designed to 
be used  in labs, produced a false positive or a false negative more than half 
the time.  The machines were the least reliable in identifying the most 
dangerous  materials, the tests showed. 
The weaknesses of the devices were apparent in Newark one recent morning. A  
truck, whose records said it was carrying brakes from Germany, triggered the  
portal alarm, but the backup device could not identify the radiation source.  
Without being inspected, the truck was sent on its way to Ohio. 
"We agree it is not perfect," said Rich O'Brien, a customs supervisor in  
Newark. But he said his agency needed to move urgently to improve security after  
the 2001 attacks. "The politics stare you in the face, and you got to put  
something out there." 
*** 
At the Nevada Test Site, an outdoor laboratory that is larger than the state  
of Rhode Island, the next generation of monitoring devices is being tested.  
In preparing to spend billions of dollars more on equipment, the Department  
of Homeland Security is moving carefully. In Nevada, contractors are being 
paid  to build prototypes of radiation detection devices that are more sensitive 
and  selective. Only those getting passing grades will move on to a second  
competition in the New York port.  
Similar competitions are under way elsewhere to evaluate new air-monitoring  
equipment and airport screening devices. That approach contrasts with how the  
federal government typically went about trying to shore up the nation's 
defenses  after the 2001 attacks. Government agencies often turned to their most 
familiar  contractors, including Northrop Grumman, Boeing and SAIC, a technology 
giant  based in San Diego. The agencies bought devices from those companies, 
at times  without competitive bidding or comprehensive testing. 
Documents prepared by customs officials in an effort to purchase container  
inspection equipment show that they were so intent on buying an SAIC product,  
even though a competitor had introduced a virtually identical version that was 
 less expensive, that they placed the manufacturer's brand name in the 
requests.  The agency has bought more than 100 of the machines at $1 million each. 
But the  machines often cannot identify the contents of ship containers, 
because many  everyday items, including frozen foods, are too dense for the gamma 
ray  technology to penetrate.  
*** 
But given the inevitable imperfection of technology and the vast expanse the  
government is trying to secure, some warn of putting too much confidence in  
machines.  
"Technology does not substitute for strategy," said James Jay Carafano,  
senior fellow for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative  
think tank. "It's always easier for terrorists to change tactics than it is for  
us to throw up defenses to counter them. The best strategy to deal with  
terrorists is to find them and get  them."