The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will expand a six-year old program that has been focused on providing the New York City region with nuclear and radiological monitoring capabilities throughout the area’s transportation infrastructure to include the Los Angeles area.
The Securing the Cities (STC) program began in 2006 as a pilot project by DHS in New York City and the surrounding areas to help prevent a potential radiological or nuclear attack in the region by providing state and local law enforcement authorities with detection systems, training, expertise and the operational concepts needed to use the technologies. In addition to the City and State of New York, the program extends to stakeholders in Connecticut and New Jersey.
The addition of the Los Angeles/Long Beach region marks the first expansion of STC beyond the original New York pilot.
The STC program is overseen by the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) within DHS.
Although it had rocky beginnings in terms of coordination between federal and state and local officials, the STC program is lauded for creating unprecedented levels of cooperation and coordination between these various stakeholders.
“Countering chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats requires a coordinated, whole-of-government approach,” says DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. “The Securing the Cities program is a key component of the department’s efforts to protect our nation by enhancing our ability to detect and interdict illicit radiological and nuclear weapons or materials in major metropolitan areas.”
As part of the expansion to the Los Angeles region, DHS said that it would provide a $1 million grant and an additional $500,000 in training support, and will be eligible to receive additional funding pending Congressional appropriations “to build a region-wide, robust nuclear detection capability.”
The project is divided into three phases. In phase one, state and local law enforcement develop an initial operating capability to detect and report the presence of radiological and nuclear materials.
In the second phase, DNDO provides additional resources to enhance detection, analysis, communication and coordination to better integrate state and local capabilities with similar federal government activities beyond first phase levels. In the final phase, the agency works with regional partners to sustain the established local architecture by providing adjudication of detector alarms, subject matter expertise and feedback on training, exercise and program support.
The Obama administration is seeking $22 million for STC in FY ’13, and although Congress has yet to approve an appropriations bill for DHS, both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have agreed to the request, which includes funding for a second location.
DHS says that DNDO will work with the Los Angeles mayor’s office to create a regional structure of law enforcement and first responder organization’s to detect and prevent radiological and nuclear threats. DHS says that initial efforts will also focus on meeting the immediate needs of state and local agencies to develop baseline nuclear detection and reporting capabilities.
The agency will also work with other partners in the region on training and exercises to improve their detection capabilities and to help them work with their federal partners.
In the New York City region the STC program has provided more than 8,500 pieces of detection equipment, trained nearly 13,000 personnel, and conducted more than 100 drills. DHS has been spending between $20 million and $40 million annually on the program since its inception.