The Project > Phase II

In Phase II, now in the planning and initial working stages, this Northeast group builds on the success of the original Phase I initiative and expands its capabilities to test both technology and critical information flow among two nations' federal, state, provincial and local security sectors, private security concerns, and across international boundaries. Following Phase I, the original working group partnered with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and together, in addition to the State of New Hampshire, they have engaged the Provinces of Quebec and the State of Vermont to join in fiscal sponsorship of studies of supply chains arriving in the U.S. via the ports of Halifax and Montreal. Based on its most recent meeting in Montreal on January 8 and 9, 2004, the Canada-U.S. working group expects that those two ports, as well as additional state and provincial agencies, will also assist with additional fiscal resources to enhance the scope of the Phase II effort. Most recently the group has partnered with the National Infrastructure Institute Center for Infrastructure Expertise (NI2CIE) based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Alexandria, Virginia.

In the study of cargo container supply chains, hand-held, portal and/or crane-monitored radiation detectors will be used to screen containers for contraband, with emphasis placed on detecting materials and components for nuclear weapons and other radiological devices. In addition, select containers will be monitored with an in-container prototype sensor package with the capability to monitor environmental factors, motion, radiation, and other relevant parameters. Encrypted data from sensors will be transmitted via wireless communications equipment to a base station and then relayed by satellite phone to a central monitoring facility. The data at the central monitoring site will be exchanged with authorities responsible for managing supply chain information and tracking container movements. A significant accomplishment of this project will be to assess the extent to which security and supply chain professionals can share information. The study routes will include a range of intermodal transport options from the Canadian ports to commercial businesses in Canada and the United States. Plans for security enhancement will be developed for each route consisting of both procedures and technical measures, and the impacts and effectiveness of those selected security measures for each supply route will be evaluated.

The import of this project goes far beyond the studying and creation of data efficiently to optimize the safety of cargo container supply chains. The working group is a unique geo-political agglomeration of provincial, state, selected regional components of federal agencies and representatives of the private sector. As such it has created an unparalleled test bed not only to ensure better security for point-of-origin to point-of-destination cargo container delivery but also to test and better realize the dissemination of all relevant supply chain data to the various homeland security components of two nations and their political subdivisions and to those in the private sector having on-line day-to-day responsibility for that security. These projects address Points 18 and 20 of the Manley-Ridge Smart Border action plan. They address issues raised repeatedly since 2001 in the context of the U.S. Canada Cross-Border Crime Forum conducted each year by the Canada Solicitor General's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice.