Thread: Estimated cost rises for border monitors

Estimated cost rises for border monitors
By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post | June 29, 2008

WASHINGTON - The cost to put a new kind of radiation monitor in place at borders and ports across the country would be far more than the Department of Homeland Security initially told Congress, according to budget documents and interviews with officials.

The department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office said in a report two years ago that the monitors would cost more than $500,000 each to buy and deploy. On the basis of that report, Congress allowed the office to move ahead with a $1.2 billion plan to begin deploying the devices.

Now, the nuclear detection office estimates that the total cost for each machine will work out to at least $778,000. The office said it needs almost $68 million "for the procurement and deployment" of 87 machines for one portion of the project, according to budget documents.

A spokesman for the nuclear detection office said the new cost estimates appear higher because they include current expenses to deploy the machines, such as infrastructure construction, calibration of the machines' software, and labor.

Spokesman Russ Knocke said Capitol Hill was advised from the beginning that there would be additional costs for deployment of the machines, known as advanced spectroscopic portal monitors, or ASPs.

"The cost per unit of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal system has not increased in price. The cost was previously quoted to congressional staff and the Government Accountability Office as approximately $377,000," Knocke said in an e-mail. "Congressional officials were also advised that there was a deployment cost associated with each system that includes a one-year maintenance contract. The cost of deployment is approximately $325,000 and $400,000 per unit for current generation Radiation Portal Monitors and Advanced Spectroscopic Portal systems, respectively."

Some officials familiar with the program said the cost to buy and deploy the ASPs could climb even higher after the GAO completes an independent assessment this summer.

The cost issues are the latest wrinkle for a program that has been described by the Bush administration as vital to homeland security but that has been delayed repeatedly after GAO auditors and some lawmakers questioned its management and the effectiveness of the machines. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee expects to address some of those issues in a hearing next month on Bush administration efforts to develop a global approach for thwarting potential detonation of nuclear bombs or dirty weapons in the United States.

At the request of homeland security committee chairman Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, and other legislators, GAO auditors are continuing to analyze the cost estimates because the auditors question the reliability of the projections. A GAO report on the auditors' analysis of the costs is expected in August.

"Congress and the Department of Homeland Security are trying to make America safer from a nuclear terrorist attack. To do that, we need to make sure that we are building the right kind of nuclear detection defenses and that we are building them the right way," Lieberman said. "Part of that entails making sure we use realistic estimates of what detection technologies are going to cost."

Problems with the nuclear detection program began in August 2006. GAO auditors concluded then that a cost-benefit report, submitted to Congress two months earlier to win approval to begin deploying 1,400 machines, greatly overestimated their effectiveness.

The auditors questioned whether the expense was worth it, in part because the ASPs are significantly more expensive than monitors now in use, and it was not clear that the ASPs perform significantly better.

Those findings spurred lawmakers to require Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to personally certify ASPs' performance before the plan could move forward.

Last year, the auditors raised other questions about the nuclear detection office's ASP testing. They contended that the tests were flawed because manufacturers of the monitors were allowed to conduct dress rehearsals and calibrate their machines in anticipation of testing, which auditors said inappropriately enhanced the monitors' performance. That testing was undertaken to generate data for Chertoff's certification decision.

In November, after field testing exposed problems with the ASPs, Chertoff decided that the machines did not operate well enough for his certification and needed more work.

Since then, the nuclear detection office has been preparing new tests, with the goal of securing certification from Chertoff in September or October, said a spokesman for the office.

www.boston.com

WHAT, EXACTLY, DO THESE MACHINES DO? DO THEY JUST TELL BP WHEN SOMEONE IS TRYING TO BREACH THE FENCE?

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THEY ARE AWFUL EXPENSIVE JUST FOR THAT. THERE ARE MANY SENSOR DEVICES THAT CAN DETECT A BREACH OF ANY THRESHOLD THAT ARE ACTUALLY VERY CHEAP. THIS DOES NOT SOUND RIGHT TO ME.

FOR THIS MUCH MONEY IT SHOULD DETECT THE BREACH AND ALSO CREATE AN IMPENETRABLE FORCE FIELD, ENCIRCLING THE ENTRANTS, HANDCUFFING THEM AND THEN BEAMING THEM BACK TO MEXICO.

I THINK WE SHOULD QUESTION WHY THESE COST SO MUCH.

OK SO THIS IS WHAT I FOUND:

Raytheon Delivers First Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Systems
TEWKSBURY, Mass., Nov. 20, 2006 -- Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) delivered the first four engineering development models of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) to the Department of Homeland Security Nov. 14, four months after the initial contract award.

"This is a tremendous effort by our Raytheon-led ASP team in a very rapid response to an urgent and critical homeland security need," said Mary Petryszyn, Raytheon vice president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems' Joint Battlespace Integration business team.

Advanced spectroscopic portals are panel-like devices that contain detectors used to screen people, cars, trucks and containers for illicit radioactive materials at some of the more than 600 ports of entry into the United States. This new generation of portals is needed to improve discrimination between innocent and threat materials, which will reduce the number of false alarms compared to the first generation of screening portals currently in place.
Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Joint Battlespace Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a strong international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon Company, with 2005 sales of $21.9 billion, is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide.

Contact: Guy Shields 978.858.5246

OK WE DONT REALLY NEED THESE AT THE BORDER BECAUSE NO ONE IS SUPPOSE TO BE ABLE TO GET BY THE BORDER. BUILD A GOOD FENCE....WE NEED THEM AT THE PORTS. BUT THE ONES WE HAVE WORK JUST ABOUT AS GOOD. SO MY VOTE IS NO. I THINK THE MANUFACTURER JUST WANTS TO GET ANOTHER BITE OF THE APPLE BY SELLING THEIR "NEW AND IMPROVED" MODEL. I AM SURE THE ONES WE ALREADY HAVE ARE SUFFICIENT.

I agree, So a simple geiger counter is no longer viable? It read my old radium dial watch from 30 feet away.
Raytheon is a producer of over priced merchandise the ("payed off") fed buyers are sucking up.
Through the porkers out!
JBG

I also think this is a pork barrel project for Raytheon and should be reconsidered.