Port radiation scanner gets its screen test

A new radiation detector that could improve the screening of U.S.-bound cargo containers for nuclear weapons will undergo full-scale testing in the Port of Oakland, developers of the technology announced this week.

VeriTainer Corp., a Bay Area firm, will equip the Matson Navigation Co. terminal with scanners that attach to the hoisting mechanism of towering cranes that serve container ships.

The device screens cargo for radiological materials as it is loaded and unloaded, reducing the need to place detectors on busy docks and wharves where they can complicate harbor operations.

If successful and widely applied, the detectors will give domestic and foreign ports the potential to scan virtually every container arriving in the United States, VeriTainer executives say.

Today, many shipping containers arriving in the U.S. are checked for nuclear materials as they leave port terminals by truck, sometimes days, even weeks, after they are unloaded.

At foreign ports, many containers aren’t screened for radiation before they leave for the U.S., creating a potential opening for terrorists to smuggle in weapons.

“The key to our technology is that we are in the workflow,” said VeriTainer Chief Executive John Alioto. “Our goal is to install detectors around the world, making every container crane a security checkpoint.”

Matson, which owns the terminal along with Stevedoring Services of America, has agreed to install scanners on one of the facility’s three cranes for a 60-day trial run.

The VeriTainer system screens for neutrons as well as gamma rays and gamma energy, a product of radioactive decay. Company officials say the readings then are transmitted from the crane via wireless technology to computer monitors used by inspectors.

Unlike current scanners, the device can detect shielding used to conceal nuclear materials and determine if the emissions are a type associated with radiological weapons, which would reduce false alarms, developers say. More than 1% of cargo -- including bananas, kitty litter, ceramics and building materials -- naturally emits radiation.

Rather than sell the detectors, VeriTainer plans to enter into agreements with ports and terminal operators to install the devices and then charge $20 per inspection.

The equivalent of 7 million 40-foot cargo containers arrive in the U.S. every year from foreign ports. Almost half are unloaded in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest harbor complex in the nation. There are about 2,500 large port cranes worldwide.

Alioto said the system could help ports and the federal government meet new container inspection goals required by the federal Safe Port Act, which is designed to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. harbors to terrorist attack.

Signed by President Bush in October, the measure requires that almost all containers entering through the nation’s top 22 ports must be scanned for radiation by the end of next year.

The law further calls for pilot programs in three foreign ports where all containers bound for the U.S. must be screened.

“If the testing comes out positive and the technology is reliable, it will make a lot of headway in tactical planning and securing containers,” said Noel Cunningham, a maritime security consultant and former chief of the Los Angeles Port Police.

Cunningham, who works for the Marsec Group, said the potential to prevent false alarms could save time and money by reducing the number of containers that might have to be fully inspected, a tedious undertaking.

Terminal operators and shipping line representatives say the VeriTainer system could streamline the inspection system in port and make it increasingly possible to screen most containers bound for U.S. ports.

“Conceptually, this sounds pretty positive. The farther from our ports you can detect things the better, and anything we can do to push that boundary back the better,” said Jim McKenna, chief executive of the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents shipping companies and terminal owners on the West Coast.

In the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, U.S. Customs and Border Protection operates 85 stationary radiation detectors near the exit gates of 14 port terminals.

Earlier this month, the agency added 18 mobile radiation detectors, part of a group of 24 that will be deployed by January. In addition, customs officers use small hand-held detectors on the docks and wharves to check a small fraction of the cargo containers that arrive daily.

Patrick Jones, a Customs spokesman in Washington D.C., said the agency might consider the VeriTainer device if it is successful and addresses the difficulties inspectors face in foreign and domestic ports.

“Theoretically this would go a long way toward solving problems that exist in some seaports,” Jones said. “It can be very cumbersome today moving containers around the docks to subject them to radiation scans.”

dan.weikel@latimes.com