For obvious reasons, the first target of the United States’ heightened security following the September 2001 terrorist attacks was airlines. It wasn’t long, however, before officials recognized that the nation’s seaports presented a gaping hole in the nation’s security network. In response, the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) established the first framework for security at U.S. maritime ports.
The global response has been equally fervent. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN agency responsible for improving maritime safety and preventing pollution from ships, passed a sweeping security regime in December containing mandatory steps member states must take to strengthen maritime security and prevent acts of terrorism against international shipping.
Despite all the attention and expense, it’s evident that all 361 commercial seaports in the U.S., from giants the likes of New York and San Diego to smaller ports like Portland and Searsport, are not equally secure. For all that has been done, much more needs to be done.
Paying for the heightened security has devolved into the usual political dogfight as ports from Seattle to Searsport scrap to secure a bigger share of federal funds. The stakes are high: without federal dollars, state and local budgets are left to foot the bill for security. Private maritime commercial interests, meanwhile, are caught between immediate heightened security needs and waiting for slower bureaucratic processes to develop standardized security protocols.
The Front Line
Prior to 9/11, the U.S. Coast Guard’s mission had more to do with the safety of vessels and mariners. “Port security went from less than five percent of our mission before 9/11 to over 30 percent,” says Commander Wyman Briggs, Executive Officer at the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office in Portland. To accommodate the demand for extra manpower, the Coast Guard has drawn on reservists in Maine and New Hampshire. “They normally serve a week per month, but they’ve have been brought on full time,” says Briggs. “We also count on efficiencies: while you’re looking for security issues, you can catch latent safety issues as well.”
The Coast Guard also relies on fishermen, ferry captains, and other seafarers to keep an eye out for anything suspicious or out of place. The “Coastal Beacon” program employs code words that observers transmit to the Coast Guard. Briggs say observers have reported “a couple things worth following up on with the FBI” since the start of the program.
The Coast Guard has increased its regular patrols of waterfront facilities and the number of vessel escorts. Decisions over which vessels to escort are made randomly, but ships that meet a certain risk profile – such as certain cargo vessels and cruise ships – are routinely escorted. The Coast Guard requires incoming vessels to provide 96 hours advance notice of arrival. Before a ship enters port, the Coast Guard reviews the ship’s record and screens the crew roster. “If there’s a suspicion with the vessel, we do a boarding offshore or at the dock,” says Briggs. He describes a procedure in which the Coast Guard lines up the ship’s crew, compares the people to the paperwork supplied by U.S. Customs and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Many incoming ships, especially arrivals at Portland Pipeline’s oil terminal, are screened because of the fact that oil tankers sail under many foreign flags and carry crews of diverse nationalities. “We may decide to do a sweep [through the ship] and make sure they aren’t adding crew, and we also do random armed checks offshore or at the dock,” says Briggs. “We use the same computerized law enforcement system that they use at borders to look at crew manifests.”
Briggs says that “boarding that many more vessels on a 24-7 basis… takes additional resources.” Since the Coast Guard increased its focus on homeland security, it has also received a like increase in funding and manpower, thanks in large part to efforts on the part of Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard. “Congress completed work on allocating one billion new dollars, and a manpower increase of 5,000 to the Coast Guard,” says Snowe spokesman Dave Lackey, noting that “it takes time for funds to make it through the pipeline.”
Little Big Port
Portland’s diverse shipping modes present challenges typical of much larger ports. Fishing, bulk cargo, oil, containerized freight and passenger ferry and cruise ships: Portland traffics in every kind, each presenting its own security challenges.
Overseeing the City of Portland’s waterfront operations is Capt. Jeffrey Monroe, Director of Ports and Transportation. As did many other ports following 9/11, the city contracted with a private firm to do a security assessment. The Portland Police Department also conducted an assessment of harbor security, and the Coast Guard selected Portland as the site for one of two nation-wide vulnerability assessments – the other being San Diego. “The Port of San Diego is big and has a huge population,” says Monroe. “On the other hand, Portland is very diversified, and a microcosm of much larger ports.”
Portland is the largest cargo port in New England by tonnage and second only to Philadelphia in East Coast petroleum shipping. That might elevate Portland’s risk of being a potential target, but the diversity of activity in the harbor – from fishing vessels to cargo – also made it a suitable case study for the Coast Guard.
Monroe and others interviewed for this article were naturally wary of discussing specific findings, especially concerning vulnerability. In general, Monroe says that Portland fared “quite well” in the Coast Guard assessment. “Because we are quite small geographically, it is easier,” says Monroe. “We have developed standards on how security will be maintained. Most of our facilities operate under the same fencing, lighting, surveillance and response procedures.”
Cruise Control
If there is any leak in the seal it is likely to be in two of Portland’s busiest activities: container cargo and passenger lines. Times have changed since the 1985 ACHILLE LAURO incident, in which armed Palestinian hijackers seized the Italian cruise ship. The terrorists killed a disabled American tourist, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body overboard with his wheelchair. The tragedy provided the catalyst for heightened awareness of security aboard passenger vessels, and the promulgation of numerous international conventions.
Following 9/11, passenger ship security has heightened considerably. Cruise ships carrying two and three thousand passengers now have the same type of security screening on board as one finds at airports. “Any passenger, crew, or service staff boarding the ship has their ID checked,” says the Coast Guard’s Briggs. “Many cruise ships also have armed security officers. We meet with them at their first port visit and go over their security plan with them. We also audit them to make sure it’s implemented. They take it pretty seriously.”
Despite the precautions, airtight security of passenger traffic can present problems. An OpSail event in Portland at the scale of the event three years ago – with its scores of ships, tourists, onlookers and attendant small craft – would be certain to give security organizers conniptions.
Guaranteeing the security of container cargo presents a very different set of challenges. Container freight is modular, meaning it is designed for efficient movement on ship, rail or truck carriers. Approximately 90 percent of the cargo entering the United States is shipped in 40-foot long containers. Portland’s International Marine Terminal handled 2,331 containers last year; by contrast, the Port of Houston handled 1.2 million containers last year. Sheer volume makes inspecting them overwhelming; U.S. customs officials may only inspect about two percent of the six million containers that arrive each year from foreign countries. While it took three days to check each passenger jet after the 9/11 attacks shut down the U.S. air travel network, checking every container in the shipping system would require over six months and bring maritime commerce to a standstill.
Despite overwhelming numbers, Jack Humeniuk, chief of operations for P&O Ports NA, which runs Portland’s International Marine Terminal, says there have been a lot of changes in security since 9/11. Most of these go beyond the terminal itself. “Once a container is discharged here, it’s too late to find something. So measures are focused on verification at the point where the container is loaded and sealed, essentially pushing back the U.S. border to a container’s point of origin,” says Humeniuk.
“You don’t know what’s in a container,” says Portland’s Monroe. “There is as much scrutiny for pistachio nuts from Iran as clothing from Singapore.” The U.S. Customs Service requires 24-hour advance notification in writing, with a manifest detailing the contents and seal number of every container entering the U.S. Without it, the container cannot be discharged from the ship. “When we discharge a container, we do a visual inspection of the seal to verify that it hasn’t been tampered with. Movement of containers is a known transport mode,” says Humeniuk. “The biggest thing we look for is the unusual – no seal, or the wrong seal. Verification isn’t new to our line of work.”
Technology is making rapid improvements in container cargo security and efficiency. Electronic seals, capable of emitting alarm signals via satellite if tampered with, are not far from becoming reality. Nor are Global Positioning units secured in containers that enable real-time tracking of each unit.
What is new are the meetings Humeniuk and his colleagues attend regularly with port security officials, at which they are constantly reminded that security is now part of everyday operations. “It’s on the front burner. Certain containers are profiled and get more attention, depending on where they come from. It used to be containers from drug-exporting countries. Now you keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary. We’re aware that security is part of our everyday job.”
Agency Soup
A Port Security Committee was formed in Portland after 9/11 that involves the office of the Attorney General, Transportation Security Administration, FBI, Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies, as well as air and surface transport officials. The U.S. Customs Service has developed a Customs Partnership Against Terrorism, or CPAT. “We now have whole host of different groups – federal, state, and local – keeping track,” says Portland’s Monroe.
He launches into what sounds like the port security version of “who’s on first”: Port operators meet under the Coast Guard. The City of Portland meets with all of its tenants on the waterfront. There are regular security meetings with airport and surface transportation station managers and railroads and bus company officials, plus meetings in the city with the fire chief and city manager. “We meet all the time,” says Monroe. “We sometimes say we wouldn’t be there but for the donuts, but the nice thing about a meeting is that communication amongst ourselves is improved. The time to build relationships is not in middle of an emergency. The Marine Incident Response Teams, the Fire and Police Departments – we know each other now. Nobody will get injured. That’s the value of meeting with people on a regular basis. Someone can press a button, and everyone responds. The downside is, I’m glued to a pager and I carry 24 hours of rations and an emergency travel kit everywhere I go.”
Private Sector Response
Ship owners and freight terminals operators are taking charge of their own security, despite increased costs. Their primary business objective is to keep ships moving, not getting hung up in ports. Delays cost ship owners and the terminals money, so their incentive is to make sure the ship and its cargo are secure. The last thing that any port or shipping company wants is to have its name plastered all over the news in association with a terrorist attack.
Insurance costs have increased as well. Under the U.S. Terrorism Risk Insurance Act enacted November 2002, all property and casualty policies are required to be issued with the option to purchase terrorism risk insurance. Tom Egan of Smithwick and Clarke Insurance in Portland says, “We run into people asking us all the time, ‘Should I buy it?’ Some of our customers buy it and some don’t. Larger, more sophisticated companies with larger-value vessels tend to buy it more than the smaller business operator whose overhead is a much bigger factor.”
IMO’s new International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, or ISPS, provides a standard framework for evaluating risk, enabling companies and governments to offset changes in threat with changes in vulnerability for ships and port facilities. Mandatory requirements consist of identifying port and ship assets, threats and possible weaknesses. It also requires the establishment of security plans, designated security officers and readily available security communications, security equipment, and to control the access and activities of people and cargo. Much of this is already in place in the U.S., or is close to getting there.
Still, a reasonably secure U.S. port represents but one point in the continuum of international shipping. Securing ports and the cargo passing through them worldwide remains far-off. That is largely because full implementation of the ISPS is a financial and logistical burden many countries cannot afford. “Challenges regarding [ISPS] implementation are often related to the training and experience of the people involved,” says IMO spokeswoman Natasha Brown. “That is why we have already begun a $2.4 million program of technical assistance, including seminars and workshops in developing countries, to help countries implement the requirements.”
Here at home, Sen. Snowe’s spokesman Dave Lackey says a federal security funding formula is likely to go through that is based on container traffic alone. That would put Portland close to the bottom of the food chain. “To have the formula only based on volume is only one factor,” says Lackey. “There are other ways to make sure it comes out fair. One way is to do it is through Congressional oversight. [Senator Snowe] signaled to [Homeland Security] Secretary Ridge that attention should be paid to ports like Portland as well as New York.”
Heightened security does not end with funding. Port operators and security officials stress that the first line of defense is heightened awareness that someone, somewhere, may attempt to inflict damage on the property and people working on the waterfront. By that measure, Maine ports are far more secure than they were before.