Return to Virginia Business - May 2003

Port security tightens
War, terrorism force a watch for "dirty bombs" and illegal aliens

by Garry Kranz
for Virginia Business
May 2003

The line of 18-wheel trucks snakes nearly to the docks at Norfolk International Terminal. Inching forward, each rig waits to pass through a newly installed radiation detector near the outbound gate. As television monitors collect images, guards at the Virginia Port Authority facility watch attentively for gauges to indicate if isotopes are escaping and anything is suspicious.

The inspection process is deadly serious. Hampton Roads is the second largest port on the U.S. East Coast, handling more than a million cargo containers each year. Only a few hundred yards away from the wharves is the Norfolk Naval Base. It is the largest naval facility in the country and boasts of every type of warship, including nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines that are playing decisive roles in the wars against terrorism and Iraq.

They are juicy targets, indeed, and there’s already a precedent for attacking Navy ships at harbor. The al-Qaida terrorist group, which 19 months ago destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and attacked the Pentagon, also orchestrated a deadly attack on the Norfolk-based destroyer U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000, killing 17 sailors. Fears abound that enemies could sneak a nuclear warhead, or “dirty bomb,” designed to spew radioactive waste in the middle of the port and put much of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet’s headquarters out of action. To guard against such bombs, the Hampton Roads port installed the first radiation-detection system in the country.

A war games exercise sponsored last year by Booz Allen Hamilton of Washington, D.C., simulated what would happen if terrorists unleashed dirty bombs. The conclusion: U.S. ports would shut down for more than a week, with a direct loss to the nation’s economy of $58 billion. Also, concerns are growing that the U.S. Coast Guard — the chief line of defense of ports — is too underfunded and overstretched. “We have very different issues than some little river port. We are the most target-rich port in the U.S.,” says Robert Merhige, deputy executive director and general counsel for the Virginia Port Authority (VPA), which manages Virginia’s publicly owned marine ports and facilities.

Moreover, making sure that the port is as secure as possible is a matter of good business practice to the VPA. The authority is proceeding with an ambitious $3 billion plan to greatly expand the port over the next 20 years. At the same time, it must fight off competitive threats from other U.S. ports such as Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. To stay on track, the VPA must ensure that it can vet its cargoes as quickly and efficiently as possible to keep customers happy. “No one is doing what we are doing,” says J. Robert Bray, VPA’s executive director.

Keeping cargoes moving is critical for the economy. NIT alone annually ships the equivalent of 1.5 million 20-foot-long merchandise containers around the world, with more than $30 billion in cargo crossing its docks. Goods include everything from potato chips to blue jeans to Chinese-made gewgaws. Hampton Roads’ economy depends heavily on port commerce: more than 2,200 local residents work at the port. Hundreds more work at jobs for private port-related services companies in the Tidewater region.

Even before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the VPA was beefing up security. Today, the Coast Guard inspects vessels and accounts for their crews while they are still offshore. Bray says that many crew members make the same sailing runs and are familiar to authorities. What rings alarm bells are the rogue bulk carrier ships that may approach Hampton Roads only once in 10 years or so. U.S. Customs also keeps a close eye on cargoes and containers, and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is trying to recover from several security failures, including several in Hampton Roads last year. As giant cranes gingerly lift containers on or off ships, the Coast Guard often keeps watch with machine gun-tipped boats.

Bray says Customs is getting into the act much sooner. For example, Customs officials inspect some U.S.-bound cargoes in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, sealing the containers electronically. Global positioning systems enable officials to detect when the electronic seals are broken. The system is expensive, but it works.

Onshore, VPA uses sophisticated technology to keep tabs on what’s in containers passing through the port. Standing guard on the VPA wharves is Mike Reynolds, a port police officer. As each truck rig straddles the Radiation Isotope Identification Device, or RIID, Reynolds eyes the results on a special monitor. A black cab lurches forward, hauling a bright green merchandise container. The scanner kicks into gear, quickly detecting radiation in the driver’s cab and the container.

If the reading exceeds safe limits, a high-pitched alert will trigger security procedures that include detaining the driver, using handheld equipment to identify the type of radiation and notifying U.S. Customs and other federal safety officials. This particular vehicle, however, poses no threat. The driver underwent a recent medical procedure, accounting for radiation in the cab. Americium, an element used in making smoke detectors, is determined to be the source of radiation inside the container. Reynolds verifies the driver’s paper work and wishes him a good day. It is a process he will repeat about 800 times before the day ends. “This thing,” says Reynolds, referring to the RIID, “pretty much eliminates anybody being able to smuggle anything illicit [into] the port.”

The $100,000 machinery costs a relative pittance compared with what’s at stake for Virginia’s economy, not to mention the nation and the world. So far, it’s worked well. Only a handful of alerts have sounded, none of them determined to be related to a security threat.
VPA, which besides the Norfolk Terminal operates general cargo terminals in Newport News and Portsmouth, as well as the Virginia Inland Port in Warren County, had a head start in boosting security.

The inspiration wasn’t from terrorists but the U.S. Congress, which had been studying security at the nation’s maritime ports since 2000. A series of security enhancements are being put in place by VPA, including the addition of video-surveillance equipment, electronic fencing, biometrics-based identification cards, high-tech lighting equipment and additional police officers. Then there are the RIIDs: plans call for installing 25 of the devices at VPA facilities.

Phased in over several years, these improvements carry an estimated price tag of $20 million, according to port officials. Federal grants are helping offset some of the cost: VPA received more than $5 million in grants from the Transportation Security Agency last summer, the third-highest amount of any U.S. port. Another $13 million in grants has been requested. The security controls are factored into the massive port expansion. VPA’s security initiatives preceded Congress’ passage last November of the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, which requires both public and private ports to develop comprehensive security plans. “We knew this was coming, and we wanted to lead, not follow,” says Merhige.

Bombs are not the only threat. Weapons of mass destruction, such as dry anthrax, could be easily shipped inside the huge merchandise containers, or even snuck into a container that sits at the dock for several days. New security technology is a key component, but it’s not a panacea. VPA had planned to install powerful radiation sensors on each of its 20 container cranes, which remove cargo from vessels and place it on the docks for loading onto over-the-road freight haulers. These devices, used to sniff out radiation within containers and even identify potential sources, had to be scrapped when beta tests turned up unreliable readings.

Another high-powered technology that uses Gamma rays was put on hold because of its cost. These mobile portals, much more powerful than RIIDS, combine X-ray and Geiger sensors, similar to that found on airport screening devices. They are powerful enough to spot anomalies within containers, including humans hiding inside. The VPA wants to install drive-through portals for trucks at NIT and at Portsmouth Marine Terminal. “We don’t want to have (only) one and have to fold it down and move it,” says Bray. Cost is a problem, at least in the near term: at $1 million apiece, the device is roughly 10 times the cost of a RIID. Right now, VPA is exploring the mobile technology for possible future purchase, although state budget woes make that uncertain.

In another move, the port has issued new color-coded identification badges for employees and others who use the port, such as shippers or suppliers. Each of the colors correspond to a specific security level, and an alarm is sounded if a user tries to use the card to gain access to unauthorized areas. Aware that cards can be counterfeited, however, VPA this year will embed the cards with biometric sensors, which scan physiological characteristics of users and match them against information in security databases.

Shippers are adjusting to the port’s locked-down approach. Until recently, truckers weren’t required to furnish documentation until they were just a few hundred yards from the loading docks. “Now, if you’re without the right documentation, they’ll pull you over or even turn you away,” says Homer “Butch” Crane, general manager for sales and logistics with the Virginia Beach office of K Line America Inc.

The port authority isn’t the only one scrambling to harden maritime security. Prior to 9-11, the Coast Guard station in Norfolk focused mainly on rescue efforts, education and the enforcement of boating-safety laws. Recently, the Guard has stepped up enforcement and intelligence-gathering activities, mainly because it is now part of the federal Office of Homeland Security. Boarding and inspections of ships has increased. About 2,800 oceangoing vessels call at Hampton Roads each year, and the Guard is teaming with local law enforcement in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach to identify “vessels of interest” that might be potential threats to VPA facilities or Navy assets. Some Coast Guard boats used for fishery patrols near Little Creek were shifted to security details near port.

Vessels calling at the port also have to provide 96 hours’ notice of their arrival, up from 24 hours, and ships must notify the Coast Guard 30 minutes before reaching its jurisdictional limit, which extends 12 miles out to sea. Information about each vessel’s crew and cargo is coordinated through the National Vessel Movement Center, a Coast Guard operation in Martinsburg, W. Va.

That information is then coordinated with federal intelligence agencies. “We’ve had a couple of incidents of ships not telling us they were coming or, because they were a vessel of interest, we wanted to search them before letting them in,” says Capt. Larry Brooks, commanding officer of the Marine Port Safety Office in Hampton Roads.

The Navy has provided the local Guard station with about $250,000 worth of radar and camera equipment for a jerry-rigged harbor surveillance system, which observes the harbor of the Chesapeake Bay. A sobering reminder of the security threat is a 170-foot warship that’s been parked at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay since December 2001 – part of a 13-vessel contingent the Navy detached for use by local Guardsmen to safeguard the waterfront.

Mindful of the Cole attacks, the Navy is especially keen on watching for a “rogue mariner” that might try and speed into the harbor on a suicide mission. Even with most of its vessels deployed in Iraq and elsewhere — nearly half of its 13 piers are empty — security procedures continue apace. Inconsistency is the key. “We routinely change our security to thwart professional terrorists, so they can see we are a hard target to hit,” says Capt. Jerry Becker, the base’s commanding officer.

Securing the port and adjacent military installations may be the easy part. Just west of NIT, about 70 privately owned facilities for maritime commerce dot the waterfront. Coal piers, grain piers, rail hubs, wharves, and other non-containerized cargo facilities sit exposed – with no concerted plan or centralized way to monitor their security against intruders. Although the maritime legislation passed by Congress last year requires private companies to implement security plans, little federal money was provided to help business meet those goals. During the past year, 220 coal vessels, 114 bulk carriers, 12 passenger ships, 113 tankers, and 34 other various craft dropped anchor at these non-containerized facilities, says J.J. Keever, executive vice president of the Hampton Roads Maritime Association, which is composed of more than 500 maritime-commerce organizations. The group represents steamship lines that use the Hampton Roads port.

Keever’s organization is working with the VPA, the Coast Guard and private businesses to help set policies, draft security guidelines, scare up funding and provide a comprehensive security guide for this gallimaufry of services firms. Local off-duty police officers from local jurisdictions are being recruited to serve as security guards. The concern stretches to more than piers and wharves; there are a number of ship-repair facilities in Hampton Roads that are used by the Navy. More than drawing plans, though, the level of security depends on available resources. Without significant federal aid, some fear the private facilities will be the terrorists’ next vulnerable target. It’s as though Hampton Roads is being “penalized because we have the world’s largest naval installation. I think security is better in Virginia because the naval base is here, but by the same token, commerce needs to continue to flow,” says Keever.

Keever’s call for more federal funding is echoed by the American Association of Port Authorities. World trade is expected to double in 20 years and triple in 50 years, and ports need more money to pay for security improvements and expansion, according to the Arlington, Va.-based trade group.

Dirty bombs and weapons of mass destruction – or WMD as they’ve come to be called — may be receiving undue emphasis. Some port security experts say lax security checkpoints at shore present a larger and more pervasive threat. “Dirty bombs are a small problem. A bigger problem is the importation of (sleeper) cell members by terrorist organizations,” says Tom Roloff, chief executive officer of The Trident Group, a port-security consulting company in Virginia Beach.

Recent events bear this out. The Norfolk office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) last year allowed 40 crews from foreign cargo vessels to go ashore without proper authorization. In one instance, four Pakistani men disappeared after going ashore from the cargo ship Progreso, touching off a nationwide manhunt. That incident also led to reorganization at the Norfolk office of INS, also now part of the federal Homeland Security Department. Customs officials in Washington promise a turnaround. “One of the things we’ve changed is making sure people are in this country legally,” says spokesman Jim Michie.

The scope of the security needs at Virginia’s ports means there are no quick fixes. It will require input from the VPA, Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, local law enforcement and local maritime businesses. Keever, for one, is confident the region’s can-do attitude will lead to solutions that are not mere paper tigers. “We’ll put together a plan that meets the objectives of the security requirements while not impeding the flow of commerce. We’ll get there, slowly but surely,” he says. With so much on the line, does Virginia’s maritime industry have any choice?

Return to Virginia Business - May 2003