With the help of the federal government the New York City region has established an extensive capability to detect and interdict illicit radiological materials through the deployment of thousands of detection devices but more needs to be done, including establishing a permanent defensive ring around the city, says the city police department’s top counterterrorism official.
“We need to put in place a permanent radiological defensive ring through the installation of fixed radiological detection equipment to monitor traffic at all bridges and tunnels that lead into New York City,” Richard Daddario, deputy commissioner for Counterterrorism within the New York City Police Department, tells a House Homeland Security panel last month. “We are working with the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) to accomplish this goal, using existing, commercially available detection equipment.”
As part of the DNDO funded Securing the Cities initiative, state and local law enforcement agencies in the New York City region have purchased more than 8,500 pieces of radiological detection equipment as one of the last layers of defense against a terrorist group secreting a nuclear or dirty bomb into the city to be detonated. Since 2007 more than 13,000 personnel in the region have been trained to operate the devices, Huban Gowadia, acting director of DNDO, tells the panel.
Daddario says the detection devices that are currently deployed include pager-sized systems worn by officers, backpack systems, handheld isotope identifiers, and mobile detection systems. The various systems used by the NYPD are close to being connected wirelessly through the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, providing for real-time situational awareness and storage for data analysis.
Beyond a permanent defensive ring, Daddario says the region needs more advanced detection capabilities to be deployed on land, in the air and at sea. He also says that work needs to be done to network the detection devices beyond those used by the NYPD.
The Securing the Cities program began as a DNDO pilot project in New York City and its success led the Department of Homeland Security last fall to select the Los Angeles and Long Beach region of California to begin a new deployment of radiological detection systems and related operating concepts (HSR, Oct. 24, 2012).
Daddario says that without Securing the Cities, New York City would be vulnerable to a radiological-based weapons attack. Even the use of a dirty bomb, which essentially consists of an explosive device filled with radiological contaminants, could be a “death knell” for an urban area economically.
Depending on how much radiological material might be used in an explosive device and depending on where such a bomb would go off, “it would shut down all economic activity in that area, chase residents out of the area for substantial periods of time until there could be a clean up. There would be mass panic.”
Several years ago DHS attempted to halt its funding for the Securing the Cities program, arguing that it was time for the New York region to pick up the tab. Congress however continued to appropriate federal funding for the program.
Daddario says that federal funding is still needed to maintain the program.
“The STC program has been an extraordinary example of interagency and intergovernmental collaboration that would not, and going forward, could not exist without federal funding,” Daddario says.