Homeland Security Launches Pilot to Counter Small-Vessel Attacks
July 27, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
The U.S. Homeland Security Department is undertaking a pilot program aimed at countering the threat of a small-vessel attack on the nation’s ports, an official told Global Security Newswire last week (see GSN, July 24).
Boats docked at a marina in San Diego, Calif. The United States has launched a new effort to protect its ports from small vessel attacks, an official said last week (Don Emmert/Getty Images).
The agency’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has launched a “West Coast Maritime Pilot” effort, based in San Diego and Washington state’s Puget Sound region.
The program is slated to deploy and evaluate radiation and nuclear detection equipment, to include human-portable and mobile, or boat-mounted, systems, according to Chris Inman, the detection office director for the San Diego portion of the effort.
Program officials will develop a regional maritime concept of operations and provide naval-specific training on nuclear detection equipment, he said. It also will “identify any gaps that may still be remaining in that maritime architecture,” Inman said.
National concern about the threats posed by small naval vessels appears to be on the rise.
Bethann Rooney, manager of port security for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, sees a small-vessel attack as the greatest security risk facing the nation’s ports today.
“For us, we’ve essentially got a single choke point that all deep draft vessels need to pass,” she said during a July 10 panel discussion at the Center for National Policy. “If that choke point is compromised by a small vessel attack … it will essentially shut down the entire port of New York and New Jersey.”
