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Experts see port security frailties

Poorly monitored cargoes and waters are cited. Weak protection from storms is also a problem.

By IVAN PENN
Published July 14, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG — Tampa and more than a dozen other Gulf Coast ports remain vulnerable to disasters, ranging from a devastating blow by Mother Nature to a terrorist packing a bomb, scientists and security experts warned Friday.

Unchecked shipping containers pass through the waters of the Gulf Coast states every day. Piloting systems need enhancing to ensure safe navigation and to prevent human accidents. And a wider use of underwater scanning devices could prevent terrorists from slipping bombs across U.S. borders.

“We’re trying to build the support, get greater attention … so a Hurricane Katrina or a random act of terror does not shut down the sixth-largest economy in the world,” said Gary L. Springer, president of the Gulf of Mexico States Partnership Inc., who was one of three presenters at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Speaking to about two dozen scientists, law enforcement personnel and others, Springer and two other panelists said Katrina and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism should have been wakeup calls. But the panel said calls to increase funding for enhanced safety and security seem to be ignored.

“That says vulnerability,” Springer said.

The nearly two-hour forum focused on the monitoring of the narrow Tampa Bay shipping channel and deployment of counterterrorism surveillance and security around gulf ports.

The Port of Tampa is among the top 20 U.S. ports for the volume and value of products and materials that pass through.

Despite recommendations for more than $17-million in improvements on Florida’s ports alone, Mark E. Luther, an associate professor in the USF College of Marine Science, said neither the state nor the federal government has backed the proposals with money.

Among the proposals was $150,000 to improve Red Tide predictions. Last summer’s Red Tide killed crabs, snails, corals, sponges and other tiny organisms that are part of the reef ecosystem’s development.

Other proposals would help with such issues as ocean observations of hurricanes and routing of ships more effectively during natural and manmade disasters such as ship collisions.

“I don’t want to downplay the potential for a terrorist attack,” Luther said. But “these kinds of disasters are much more likely and much more probable than a terrorist attack.”

The panel did propose wider use of the Mobile Inspection Package, a tool used during the 2005 Super Bowl to search Florida waters for bomb threats from terrorists. And they suggested the purchase of equipment to scan containers aboard ships arriving in Tampa and other ports.

Springer confirmed that one in 20 containers entering the country is inspected.

“Is there technology available to scan these containers? Yes,” Springer said. “The question is, who’s going to pay for it?”

[Last modified July 14, 2006, 20:44:10]