Ports to Get $27 Million to Tighten Security

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will receive more than $27 million in federal grants to beef up security at the nation’s busiest harbor complex, federal officials announced Thursday.

The grants, which will be spent on new patrol boats, improved surveillance equipment and new command centers, go at least part way toward addressing what some local officials have said is a shortage of funding for measures to guard against terrorism.

More than 40% of the nation’s shipping moves through the ports, and some officials, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), have been lobbying Washington since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for money to protect the harbors.

Until Thursday, the complex had received only about $5.8 million since the attacks for improving fencing, cameras, communications and other on-site security systems, harbor officials said.

However, the two ports also have received money from the federal government under Operation Safe Commerce, a program designed to ensure that products can travel “through the supply chain” from overseas manufacturers to retailers in the United States without tampering, said William Ellis, the director of security for the Port of Long Beach.

The new grants from the Transportation Security Administration are part of about $170 million in federal funding for the nation’s major harbors, announced in New Jersey by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

The money, available immediately, will go to both governmental entities and private companies. It will come from two grants.

Under the first, totaling about $18 million for the two-port complex, the city of Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach will get the largest share, about $10 million. The Los Angeles Harbor Department will get about $800,000 and the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority will get about $1.4 million.

The remainder will go to six private shipping companies: Trans Pacific Container Service Corp., Pacific Harbor Line Inc., Vopak Terminal Los Angeles Inc., West Basin Container Terminal Inc. and Seaside Transportation Services, all in the Port of Los Angeles, and Total Terminals International Pier T in the Port of Long Beach.

Under the second grant, the complex will divide about $9 million more. The federal government did not release individual figures, but Ellis said it appeared likely that the two ports would divide the money about equally, with funds going to both government agencies and private firms.

The parallel Operation Safe Commerce program will bring together ports, private businesses and federal, state and local officials to promote technology to monitor the security of cargo containers, Ridge said. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach; Seattle and Tacoma, Wash.; and the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey are participating in the program.

Under a related Homeland Security program known as the Container Security Initiative, efforts are being made to identify, target and search overseas cargo bound for the United States. Ridge said that advance information is being used to identify containers that might contain weapons and other dangerous cargo before they are shipped.

He said that radiation detectors, X-ray type imaging equipment and other sophisticated screening devices are being used to examine such containers before they are loaded onto ships, and that the containers are being modified to show if they’ve been tampered with after screening.

“Let me be clear,” Ridge said Thursday. “This is not just a response to terrorism. We believe it’s a deterrent.”