Seapower - August 2009

gram manager for weapons of mass destruction.

The Department of Homeland Security, DNDO’s parent organization, did not respond to a request for comment for this report by press time.

The threat of nuclear smuggling is real: Between 1993 and 2006, there were 1,080 confirmed cases of illicit trafficking of nuclear and radiological materials worldwide, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Eighteen of these cases involved plutonium and enriched uranium — materials that can be used to make a nuclear weapon. And more than 120 cases involved radioactive materials that could be used to manufacture a dirty bomb.

At U.S. ports, the CBP oversees radiation monitoring for cargo arriving in ships over 300 gross tons — those subjected by law to tight security regulations. The Coast Guard, with its mission to protect mariners and ensure the safety of the ships themselves, boards these large ships and conducts inspections as well. Thus its members also are first-line defenders in ports.

Along the coastline, the Coast Guard is responsible for ensuring the safety of the nation’s registered small vessels — those ranging in size from small sailboats and personal watercraft to fishing vessels and large passenger ferries.

Coast Guard boarding teams, whether they embark on a 700- foot cargo vessel or 42-foot sailboat, carry a pager-sized instrument that is a personal radiation detector costing roughly $2,800, according to McDaniel. Should it go off, and they do — radiation can be found in cargo such as roofing tiles, bananas and kitty litter — boarding teams can access larger, more accurate handheld detectors staged on cutters and their commands.

They also can bring in $30,000 backpack-sized detectors, called RADPACKS, to further locate sources of gamma ray and thermal neutron radiation and transmit the data to a central Homeland Security processing center, called Laboratories and Scientific Services.

U.S. COAST GUARD

Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Marika Binggio and Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Lynch, both members of the Maritime Safety and Security Team in Alameda, Calif., inspect a possible source of radiation with their hand-held equipment during an April multi-agency exercise aboard Keystone State, a Maritime Administration Ready Reserve Force vessel homeported in Alameda.

and local law enforcement and maritime agencies have radiation-detection capabilities as well.

The DNDO’s job is to make sure that myriad agencies on the water, from CBP and the Coast Guard to state fish and wildlife departments and local law enforcement, can contribute to the domestic detection capability. The Coast Guard is the lead federal agency for port and waterways security, but its frontline personnel make up just a handful of those responsible for locating and interdicting threats.