Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
10/30/2015
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other federal agencies, national laboratories, and industry were on Capitol Hill Tuesday to emphasize the need to ramp up monitoring of radiological materials and urge continued federal funding for programs that counter nuclear smuggling and prevent radiological dispersal device (RDD) attacks on the United States.
Huban Gowadia, director of DHS’ Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), said at a House Transportation Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee hearing that the continuing resolution that funds the government through Dec. 11 “would put a significant clamp on our ability to support [Customs and Border Protection], in particular to replace some of the aging radiation portal monitors and support operations at high-volume ports.” Joe Lawless, chairman of the Security Committee at the American Association of Port Authorities, agreed that developing monitoring technology will require continued funding. “I would suggest that the government fund these research projects like these drive-through portals . . . that could detect neutrons and gamma at the same time,” he said. The White House and Congress struck a two-year budget deal this week that would add $80 billion in defense and domestic spending.
A House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee summary of a subject matter document noted that last year, “11 million shipping containers arrived on ships and entered U.S. seaports, representing nearly half of incoming U.S. trade.” The rapid transfer of cargo from ships to land transportation throughout the U.S. is “a possible conduit and target for terrorist activities,” it noted. Dirty bombs, RDDs that would use conventional explosives to spread radioactive material, contain elements that may be easily acquired worldwide. Explosions would be harmful to the public and would cause panic, “contaminate property, require a potentially costly cleanup, and if it occurred at a U.S. port, a shutdown of that port,” the summary says.
To counter the dirty bomb threat, DHS’ CBP operates programs including the Container Security Initiative to scan high-risk containers at foreign seaports via X-ray and gamma ray imaging, along with deploying radiation portal monitors domestically at U.S. ports. The DNDO also works with other federal agencies to develop the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture that detects nuclear smuggling through a global network of “sensors, telecommunications, and personnel,” the summary says. It notes that from fiscal 2008-2013, “DNDO obligated roughly $350 million for 189 research and development projects, of which approximately $103 million went to 48 projects focused on detecting shielded nuclear material.”
Todd Owen, assistant commissioner in CBP’s Office of Field Operations, noted that inspections of the highest-risk shipping containers occur abroad, consisting of approximately 1 percent of the containers that arrive to the U.S. from foreign ports each year. For containers deemed lower-risk, “it’s about 2.7 percent on top of the 1 percent, so we’re looking at a 3.7 percent overall in the maritime arena” that are inspected upon arrival at U.S. ports. “The rates are approximately 26 percent on the land border with Mexico . . . because of the narcotics threat,” Owen added. While all cargo is monitored in some capacity, only a small percentage is characterized as elevated risk.
Progress and Shortcomings in Radiological Monitoring
David Maurer, director of justice and law enforcement issues at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), noted shortcomings in radiological detection systems. A CBP division responsible for conducting covert operations at U.S. ports to test existing systems’ nuclear and radiological material detection capabilities “may not have sufficiently accounted for using nuclear materials that posed the highest risk to the country,” Maurer said. He noted that from 1995 to 2013, “CBP invested over $2.5 billion to acquire, deploy, and maintain radiation detection equipment; provide training; and conduct both overt and covert tests of this equipment to assess the equipment’s effectiveness.”
Charles Potter, distinguished member of the technical staff at the Sandia National Laboratories, noted that the cleanup needs and psychological impacts of a potential RDD attack are not well understood. “No comprehensive standard has been established regarding what radiation limits would constitute a successful cleanup,” he said. Potter added that the economic consequences of such an event could be significantly disruptive. “If the radionuclide is difficult to remove from surfaces, as some are, the contaminated area could be off-limit for months or even years,” he said. “This would result in businesses within those areas being effectively shuttered and residents being relocated semi-permanently or permanently while costly decontamination efforts are undertaken.”
Federal agencies and national labs are working to identify new monitoring technologies. For example, Gowadia noted that the DNDO is researching “detecting from above,” as requested by the U.S. Coast Guard. “We are looking at the ability to equip the coast guard’s fixed winged and rotary craft with detection systems so that they could scan out at sea from above as well.”
