Detectors watch for nukes
By THOMAS DAIL
DAILY NEWS STAFF



John Althouse/Daily News
Assessing the threat: Vehicles pass between a pair of radioisotope detectors at Camp Lejeune’s main gate on Wednesday.


A hypothetical terrorist, armed with a dirty bomb in the trunk of his car, is heading for Camp Lejeune. His intent is to kill people, disrupt military operations and make Onslow County civilian life a nightmare.



But before he can get to the main gate at Lejeune, a mass of military and civilian police, tipped off by new radiological detectors installed around the county, stop him in his tracks.



“The idea is that if a bad person wanted to bring radiological material into the base, then we would be able to detect it and stop them,” said Catherine Montie, program manager of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a new division of the Department of Defense. She is with the agency’s Unconventional Nuclear Weapons Defense program.



State, local and federal officials are getting their first look at the new sensors at Camp Lejeune this week. The base is the third of four military installations in the country where the detectors have been installed as part of a pilot program. The tests will determine the sensors effectivness.



The program is charged with guarding the country against dirty bombs, which pack radioactive material such as uranium around an explosive, but don’t create a nuclear blast by splitting atoms like traditional nuclear bombs.



When the dirty bomb goes off, it spreads radioactive material across a broad distance. In addition to exposing people to potentially high levels of radiation, dirty bombs disrupt life by forcing a massive cleanup that could make the area off-limits for years.



Federal officials have set up detectors at Camp Lejeune’s gates and along the highways, such as U.S. 17, leading to the base. The sensors are sensitive enough to detect trace radiological material from nuclear medicine and smart enough to know it’s not a dirty bomb, said Daniel Pritchard, a member of the project’s technical staff.



It’s called “radio-isotope identification,” the ability to determine what kind of nuclear material it’s detecting.



When the sensors detect something that shouldn’t be passing them, they set off pagers at the military police guardhouse and alarms at Camp Lejeune’s 911 center. Through the Military–Civilian Task Force for Emergency Response, base officials can contact civilian police agencies when an off-base detector goes off.



They trigger a nearby traffic camera to take a picture of the vehicle carrying the material, similar to traffic light cameras used in some cities.



“It’s really very similar to when you are at the airport and your set off the portal metal detectors,” said Ric Rasmussem, health physicist for the project.



Contact Thomas Dail at tdail@


jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 229.




Sempers,

Roger