September 22, 2008—The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on September 16, 2008 that it is giving approximately $29 million in grants to prevent a radiological/nuclear attack in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area by enhancing regional capabilities to detect and interdict illicit radioactive materials. The award includes the participation of key Securing the Cities (STC) stakeholders.
DHS says providing assistance to state and local jurisdictions in and around major metropolitan areas will enable communities to build capabilities by: leveraging current technologies and deploying them regionally in a coordinated manner; designing, acquiring, and deploying the components of an operationally viable regional architecture for radiological and nuclear detection, focused on State and local jurisdictions; developing and implementing a common, multi-agency Concept of Operations for sharing sensor data and resolving alarms; and training and exercising by the regional agencies to execute operations at a high level of proficiency.
STC was launched by Secretary Chertoff in July 2006 as way to protect a high-risk urban area, such as the NYC region, from a potential radiological or nuclear attack. A previous cooperative agreement for $3.2 million was awarded to the NYPD in September 2007, to build a regional enterprise architecture for the NYC region that will allow real-time sharing of data from fixed, mobile, maritime, and human portable radiation detection systems.
