DHS Radiation Monitors 100 Percent Functional, Can Operate Past Estimated Service Life, GAO Says

The Department of Homeland Security’s 1,400 radiation portal monitors at U.S. ports of entry are 100 percent operational and can function beyond their estimated service life, until at least 2030, as long as they are properly maintained and spare parts remain available, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Nov. 30 (here). DHS started planning for replacing the entire fleet in fiscal 2014 and 2015, as the monitors began to reach the end of their estimated 13-year service life, but the department in 2016 changed to a selective replacement policy, entailing the use of monitors upgraded with new alarm threshold settings or buying “enhanced, commercially available” monitors to gain operational efficiencies and reduce labor requirements at some ports, GAO said. During fiscal years 2016-2018, DHS plans to replace about 120 monitors along the northern border with upgraded units, and from fiscal year 2018 through fiscal year 2020, intends to replace monitors that can’t be upgraded with new alarm thresholds at northern land border crossings with existing upgraded inventory, the report says.

“This upgrade enables improved threat discrimination and minimizes ‘nuisance’ alarms created by naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in commonly shipped cargo such as ceramics, fertilizers, and granite tile,” the report says. “Improved discrimination between NORM and threat material will create efficiencies for the movement of cargo through ports and minimize time that [CBP] officers spend adjudicating the nuisance alarms.” DHS also plans some replacement of upgraded monitors at certain high-volume ports with enhanced, commercially available monitors that have significantly lower nuisance alarm levels than the upgraded monitors. Upgraded monitors at some high-volume ports don’t decrease nuisance alarm rates enough to use remote monitoring operations there, meaning those port CBP officers can't perform other duties when not responding to an alarm, GAO said. While upgraded monitors bring approximately 75 percent fewer nuisance alarms on average than legacy monitors, new, enhanced monitors are expected to bring up to 99 percent fewer nuisance alarms, on average, than legacy monitors.