June 3, 2005
JEREMIAH MARQUEZ
Associated Press
Mercury News
LOS ANGELES - Radiation detectors will scan every cargo container arriving at the nation's busiest port complex for nuclear weapons or dirty bombs by the end of the year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was to announce Friday.
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will become the second major harbor in the country to have all of its incoming cargo screened, Homeland Security Department officials said. About 4.3 million containers are shipped to Southern California's dual ports each year.
The 20-feet-high devices, known as radiation portal monitors, are already in use at seaports in Jersey City, N.J., and elsewhere to prevent terrorist attacks. In April, officials announced that Oakland's was the first major harbor to install enough radiation machines to check all incoming cargo then transported inland. It has 25 portals.
"The vision is to get to a point where we have 100 percent screening coverage at all of our ports ... (and) provide the most thorough coverage this country has ever seen," a DHS official said.
Chertoff was expected to make the announcement while visiting the ports Friday afternoon; he toured Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday.
Three of the machines will be up and running by month's end, with a total of 90 installed by January.
Trucks carrying containers unloaded from ships will pass through the detectors. If the machines find signs of radiation, the container will get another scan and possibly inspection by hand-held devices to help identify how much and what kind of radiation is present.
Among the elements the machines look for are plutonium and highly enriched uranium, used to produce nuclear weapons, according to federal officials.
At a cost of about $250,000 each, the portals were funded by federal dollars and take about five seconds to screen each container, officials sad.
Miguel Lopez, port representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, criticized the measure, saying all cargo should be screened upon arrival. Some cargo linger on the docks for hours, even days, before being placed onto trucks.
"We think it's hypocritical that they don't screen it immediately after it's unloaded, said Lopez, whose union has about 500 truckers at the ports. "It puts everybody in jeopardy, not just the truckers."
DHS and company officials said they don't expect the devices to significantly back up traffic at the ports, already notoriously jammed.
"Taking an extra couple minutes to promote homeland security is something the trucking industry would endorse," said Patty Senecal, vice president of Transport Express Inc., a Rancho Dominguez-based harbor trucking and warehouse company. "It's a different story if trucks are delayed for hours and hours ... but we don't expect that."
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