The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a Massachusetts transit agency yesterday began a series of tests of biological sensors that can rapidly detect and identify harmful pathogens in the environment under an effort to further advanced the state of the art of bio-detection technology.
The actual tests of the sensors in several subway stations in the Boston area will take place during the next six to eight months. The tests are being managed by the DHS Science and Technology branch working with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and will occur in three subway stations.
The tests will use sensors provided by four companies including FLIR Corp. [FLIR], Menon & Associates, Northrop Grumman [NOC], and the North American division of Britain’s QinetiQ.
The tests will involve “trigger” sensors, which run continuously to sample air if a biological substance of concern is detected will then alert a “confirmer” system that will quickly identify the agent, a DHS S&T spokesman told Defense Daily yesterday. The identification of the bio-agent will take about 20 minutes, he said.
FLIR is the only company that is supplying a trigger sensor and confirmer system. Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ are each supplying trigger sensors while Menon is supplying confirmer systems. The sensors and confirmers are all interoperable and the baseline testing done early Thursday morning was “flawless,” the spokesman said.
The testing is being done under the DHS Detect to Protect program, which is aimed at developing and integrating biological threat sensors that can be installed in critical infrastructure locations throughout the country.
“Mass transportation systems, with their open access, can be vulnerable to hazardous materials that could rapidly spread throughout the system and endanger hundreds of thousands of lives,” Anne Hultgren, acting branch chief of the S&T Directorate’s Chemical and Biological division, said in a statement. “A rapid alert from a detection system can locate and identify these materials and provide for immediate and appropriate response to protect people and contain the hazard.”
The tests, which will be done between two to four times each month, will involve a harmless killed, non-toxic, inert bacterium that is non-infectious and is approved as a food supplement. The tests will be performed when the stations are closed to the public.
“This detection system will be one of the first such systems installed in the country, and, if it proves to be effective, could serve as a model for other mass transportation venues throughout the nation and the world,” Paul MacMillan, MBTA Transit Police Chief, said in a statement.
The tests are being coordinated with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Cambridge Public Health Department, and the Somerville Health Department, with support from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
The DHS Office of Health Affairs (OHA) currently runs a biological detection system at over 30 major urban centers throughout the country. The BioWatch program uses aerosol collectors that run continuously and have their samples manually retrieved and taken to local laboratories for analysis.
Environmental results can take well over a day to be obtained, which is why OHA is managing a next-generation BioWatch program called Gen-3 that would collect and automatically analyze samples onsite and the provide automatic alerts several times a day to appropriate local, state and federal health and emergency authorities.