Harbor to Put Security to Test

The adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are being transformed into testing grounds for new devices and strategies designed to deter terrorism, particularly the threat of a nuclear bomb.

The challenge, authorities say, is to balance the new safeguards with the flow of commerce in the nation’s busiest harbor complex, where 15,000 tractor-trailer-sized cargo containers arrive from around the world each day.

“Given that uninspected containers are a logical entry vehicle for a weapon of mass destruction, this is an important area for testing new security technology,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), a member of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security. “The lessons we learn from these systems will have broader applications everywhere in the country.”

By the end of next year, authorities expect the waterfront to bristle with video camera systems, motion sensors and radiation detectors able to sniff out a nuclear bomb in a container on a train traveling past at 30 mph.

Suspicious cargo may be scrutinized at a $40-million inspection center planned for Terminal Island and funded by a variety of revenue sources, including state and federal counter-terrorism programs, as well as the local ports, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Port Police, once a backwater agency dedicated to keeping thieves and drug smugglers off the docks, will move into a 40,000-square-foot headquarters connected to video surveillance cameras scanning operations between the Vincent Thomas Bridge and the breakwater.

The Homeland Security Department’s Transportation Security Administration and local authorities aim to fund a $35-million credential system that will involve plastic identification cards containing every port worker’s holographic photograph, fingerprints, signature, driver’s license number and criminal background.

The 10,500-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union has long opposed credential systems if they include extensive criminal background checks, arguing that they would amount to an unfair invasion of privacy. Union officials Friday were reluctant to comment on the current proposal.

Experimental tamper-proof locks and other security systems will be tested next year on Los Angeles-bound containers before they leave Hong Kong’s Modern Terminals under a program to be partly funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Under that program, “the port will be working partners with foreign port officials and terminal operators to establish new protocols and technology prototypes for screening and securing containers before they leave for Los Angeles,” said Mayor James K. Hahn.

“We will continue to be at the forefront of security because only when our ports are safe and secure can we do our best to expand economic vitality.”

Elsewhere, the Long Beach Police Department has added boats to its arsenal, and “no fishing” signs are going up wherever freight is moved near the water’s edge.

New Team Deployed

Only a month ago, the Coast Guard stationed a new 72-member marine safety and security team in San Pedro that is trained for close-quarters battle at sea. It is ready for deployment anywhere on the West Coast on 12 hours’ notice.

The team’s mission is maritime homeland security, with a focus on protecting the nation’s 50 major ports. Its duties range from routine harbor patrols to intercepting hijacked ships.

“We’re not going to sit by and let another Sept. 11 happen in this water,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Chuck Ashmore said as he boomed across the harbor in one of the team’s specially designed boats powered by dual 225-horsepower engines and armed with two .60-caliber machine guns.

A few minutes later, he pulled up alongside a dock where commercial divers were working on the hull of a foreign freighter. After team members eyeballed the operation and asked the divers for proof of identification, Ashmore turned his boat around and sped off to intercept a fishing hauler half a mile away that was cruising uncomfortably close to an incoming oil tanker.

“We’re out here day and night,” said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Keith Smith, who is in charge of the team. “Are we successful? Hard to say. We may never know whether someone changed their mind about trying something horrible because they saw us go by.”

Some of the security enhancements are less visible to the public. For example, the Coast Guard has, for the first time, begun conducting port security probes with plainclothes officers.

The stakes are high. A surprise attack on a tanker, chemical plant, refinery, bridge or rail system in the harbor, which has a daily population of about 200,000 and handles about 43% of the nation’s annual sea trade, could have a catastrophic effect on the local community and the global container industry.

Holes in Security Net

As it stands, authorities concede that the shoreline’s security net is full of holes.

The 20 law enforcement, fire and health agencies that serve the harbor could be better organized, and they have yet to agree on a common radio frequency for communication. Federal grants for port security measures have been less than expected.

Emergency officials acknowledge that there is a potential for chaos in the event of a “worst-case scenario,” such as the sinking of a freighter at the entrance to either of the harbor’s two shipping lanes, a toxic cloud rising off a major conflagration at a chemical plant or the detonation of a “dirty bomb” -- law enforcement jargon for a conventional explosive used to spread radioactive material.

The ports of both Los Angeles and Long Beach have contracted with security giant Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego, which designed the 2002 Winter Olympics safety command center, to help develop a coordinated response to potential terrorist strikes.

“We’re jazzed about the future,” said Coast Guard Capt. John Holmes, whose jurisdiction includes the Southern California coastline. “It’s exciting to know that what we are doing here now may well change the way cargo security is handled around the world.”

For the time being, the focus is on preventing terrorists from hiding a nuclear weapon in a cargo container.

“We feel that’s the biggest threat to the port,” said Los Angeles Port Police Chief Noel Cunningham. “The Osama bin Ladens of this world are trying to find ways to penetrate our defenses. If they feel we’re guarding the ports of entry, they’ll go elsewhere.”

With that goal in mind, the ports have contracted with Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, which is developing relatively low-cost radiation detectors that authorities want to test at key locations in Singapore, the harbor complex and the 20-mile-long Alameda Corridor rail line connecting the ports with train yards just south of downtown Los Angeles.

Charles Massey, an expert on maritime security at Sandia, has applied for federal funding to conduct the experiments.

“Once that federal funding is turned on,” he said, “I’ll have the system on the ground and working before the end of 2003.”

Separately, Customs Service spokesman Dennis Murphy said, “Los Angeles is high on our list” for deployment of its own radiation detection systems.

In the meantime, “we should continue be worried about the ports, which remain our greatest point of vulnerability,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes the Port of Los Angeles.

“While we’ve making big strides in the effort to prevent a weapon of mass destruction from entering the port complex,” she said, “they haven’t been fast enough.”