Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Lab Develops New Ways to Identify and Fight Terrorist Attacks

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:06:41 -0500

Detecting Terror -- 
Lab Develops New Ways to Identify and Fight Terrorist Attacks

By Erin Hayes
ABC News Correspondent

O A K  R I D G E, Tenn
Dec. 16, 2002

Jim Kulesz thought he was heading for just another in a long series of meetings that week.
Same old stuff. This time, a cell-phone company wanted to go over some of its latest
offerings.   

Little did Kulesz know, that meeting would change his mission in a very big way, because
this was post-Sept. 11 and Kulesz, a programs manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
had his mind on terrorism — or, more specifically, anti-terrorism technology. 

As the cell-phone rep chattered away, Kulesz sat pondering the possibilities. "That's when
a light bulb came on," he said. "Cell phones. It's a natural."

Now, Kulesz's team is pitching "Sensor Net," a national defense system based on the
existing network of some 30,000 cell-phone towers across the United States. The plan is to
put biological, radiological and chemical weapons detectors at hundreds — maybe even
thousands — of those towers. 

They would be linked by small computers that would not only send out a nationwide alarm to
law enforcement, but would compute how a weapons-plume would spread — and send that
information out to local emergency crews.

They have already conducted tests on the system in Washington, D.C., and near the Oak
Ridge lab. Kulesz says the tests proved the system works: "We know we can convey the
information around, perform the plume modeling and very, very rapidly convey that
information to a command center."

Both the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are
funding Sensor Net research, and are enthusiastic about its possibilities.

The Secret Is the Simplicity

Up on the roof of NOAA's Weather Service office in Oak Ridge, Will Pendergrass walked over
to the base of the weather instrument tower, where a metal box smaller than a briefcase is
inconspicuously attached. He opened it to reveal a computer, a chemical-weapons detector,
and communications equipment. This is what the Oak Ridge team proposes attaching to cell
towers — a package that runs in the range of $5,000 to $15,000 per tower.

It is, Pendergrass explains, all the equipment needed to detect a chemical weapons attack
and to alert emergency officials — locally and nationally. "You can provide the
information to a whole list, all those who need the information to do their job," he told
ABCNEWS.

The beauty of the system, Kulesz believes, is its simplicity. There is nothing to build,
no need to obtain rights-of-way or permits. 

The cell towers are already in place — and many are already monitored 24 hours a day, with
independent power supplies. "No building from the ground up. We just lease space as we
need it," said Kulesz.

They are currently testing in a few cities and working to convince others that a
biological/chemical/radiological weapons detection network is now an essential part of
national defense. Because without such a system in place, emergency officials are relying
on the "citizen" detection system. 

Kulesz said that as things stand now, in most of the country, the first sign of such an
attack would be sick people. 

"Right now, people would show up at the hospital and that might be your first indication
that there has been an attack," he said. "And what we're trying to do is design a system
that, upon release of whatever agent — whether it's chemical, biological, or radiological
— that we would very quickly sense that event, convey that information." 

That information would be conveyed to multiple command centers, if the system is ever put
in place. Data would go to ambulance crews, police, firefighters, government officials
and, if necessary, the White House — instantaneously.

Kulesz and his team are cautiously optimistic that the program will get off the ground.
They've had promising ideas before that wilted as public interest and funding waned. This
time, though, they believe they've hit on the right formula: a defense system that is
relatively cheap, ready to go — and protects against a threat that is, lately, very much
on the public's radar.   

Other Oak Ridge Projects

Detecting Poison in Drinking Water, Explosives on Planes

Oak Ridge scientists researching homeland defense systems have made it a priority to
develop systems that are as practical, affordable and user-friendly as possible. A system
called Aqua Sentinel was designed to protect city drinking water systems. 

Right now, it would be virtually impossible for most cities to know quickly if a poison
had been poured into the city's water intake. Chemical tests are run, at most, only every
few hours. And getting results can take hours, as well. 

The Aqua Sentinel relies, instead, on algae. Algae are single-celled organisms that live
naturally in rivers and lakes. As a city pulled water from a lake or river into the
drinking water system, Aqua Sentinel would monitor the health of the algae. What could
kill humans would kill the algae first, and an algae die-off would trigger an alarm within
minutes — quickly enough to shut the drinking water system down before a poison could pass
through it. The cost for the Aqua Sentinel: somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 to
$10,000. 

Another system developed at Oak Ridge is a detector that can identify minute amounts of
chemicals and explosives on boarding passes. It reads each within seconds, so every
passenger can be checked in the same time it takes to check their boarding passes now. And
much less time than it takes current equipment to sample the occasional briefcase or
backpack. 

The new "Boarding Pass Analyzer" relies on a sophisticated mass spectrometer, which reads
the specific molecular signatures of chemicals. But it is expensive: about three times the
price tag of existing explosives detectors. Convincing airports to install the more
accurate, more inclusive but more expensive Boarding Pass Analyzer has been a difficult
task for Oak Ridge scientists. 

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/antiterror_technology021216.html

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