Posted on: Friday, March 8, 2002
State seeks federal aid for harbor security
• National Guard airport role extended
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| A Coast Guard utility boat patrols Honolulu Harbor. The Coast Guard in Hawai'i is responsible for 1.4 million square miles of ocean, from Midway to American Samoa.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Those responsible for guarding Hawai'i's ports and shoreline from terrorist infiltration or attack are still stretched thin from the events of Sept. 11, but stand to get help.
Honolulu is considered a critical national seaport/terminal eligible for some of $93.3 million just approved in federal grants for port security assessments and improvements, said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta.
Capt. Gilbert Kanazawa, head of U. S. Coast Guard homeland security efforts in Hawai'i, said: "This was literally just announced, and they are looking at a short time frame — to start handing out the grants by June."
The Coast Guard and other federal agencies working at the nation's borders are also hoping for increased manpower and money to match their new responsibilities.
Mineta, calling the nation's ports an important front in the war on terrorism, said the money "will accelerate installation of enhanced security measures for passengers and cargo."
Hawai'i ports are operated by the state Department of Transportation, and the state will have to apply for the money. To its advantage, Honolulu is considered a "controlled" port, one which has access controls for vessels for national security reasons. Honolulu stands next to the Pearl Harbor Naval Base; others in the category also have military neighbors, including London/Groton, Conn.; Hampton Roads, Va.; San Diego; and Port Canaveral, Fla.
But officials plan to argue that all Hawai'i ports should be eligible for the new federal aid because of Hawai'i's unique status as an island state, said Jadine Urasaki, deputy transportation director and acting administrator of state harbors.
In addition to the money, Kanazawa hopes to get more personnel for the Coast Guard's intensified identification and inspection of vessels, cargo and passengers arriving in Hawai'i.
On alert
In November, Kanazawa wondered if his office could keep up with the increased workload indefinitely. Today, with 27 reservists recalled to active duty to stand watch with the 63 already assigned, "the Coast Guard here is trying to determine a new level of normalcy that we can continue to sustain," Kanazawa said.
Without discussing methods and operations, he said the Coast Guard has already "ramped back" from the highest security levels put into effect within hours of Sept. 11.
"We have to balance the level of security against the threat, and we are certainly checking what the daily intel produces to determine that," he said. "We will never know everything, though. We have to have some capacity to respond to crisis and its consequences."
The Coast Guard in Hawai'i is responsible for 1.4 million square miles of ocean around points of land stretching from Midway to America Samoa. It has for years evaluated and inspected, where necessary, the flotilla of commercial, fishing and cargo vessels that regularly supply Hawai'i.
"All ships over 300 gross tons are required to give us advance notice of arrival, indicating where it came from, the type of ship and the cargo they are carrying," Kanazawa said. "We are also concerned about ships carrying certain kinds of hazardous materials."
Cruise industry
Added to the workaday vessels is a growing fleet of ocean cruise liners pulling into Hawai'i's harbors. The challenge lies in the manifest — maybe 2,000 to 3,000 passengers and 1,000 to 2,000 crew members on each ship, he said.
"It's a lot of people, and we are certainly concerned about their safety and security, or if they represent a security issue for Hawai'i," he said.
Nat Aycox, port director for the U.S. Customs Service here, said he hopes the state requests money for space for his agents to process passengers on the increasing number of cruise ships stopping here.
Aycox said interagency cooperation improved after Sept. 11. When a customs agent boards a cruise ship to look at a passenger's declaration of duty on a necklace, the same agent is alert to the interests of as many as 40 other agencies in what may be going on aboard that ship, Aycox said.
Kanazawa agreed that the terror of Sept. 11 has forged a new bond of cooperation between government agencies as well as private enterprise. The result is probably an increase in efficiency and effectiveness, he said.
"There are a lot of things that we review and screen that we don't discuss," he said. "But I can tell you we work closely with the military services as well as Immigration and Naturalization, and U.S. Customs and the FBI.
"Customs and INS have to clear everybody on a foreign cruise ship when they are coming in here, and we have tried to share much more information between the different agencies.
"It has improved; we have certainly opened up the communications much more now that we all have a common goal."
Authority to board
Any ship is subject to boarding, inspection and escort, he said. Although the Coast Guard here does not have the armed sea marshal program instituted at a handful of major Mainland ports, Coast Guard personnel who board ships may be armed and are able to take control of a vessel if necessary.
"There are certain ships we do escort in, and that we do ride in, based on information we have received and our assessment of it," Kanazawa said. "It is very manpower-intensive."
Like the Coast Guard, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is counting on the homeland security issue to provide the increased manpower to meet increased responsibilities, said Donald Radcliffe, INS district director.
During the slump in tourism right after Sept. 11, Radcliffe said he was able to pull inspectors from airports and send them to Hawai'i harbors where an increasing number of cruise ship passengers needed to be cleared ashore. Now that air travel is returning to normal levels, the added burdens of cruise ship monitoring are becoming more apparent.
Nationally, INS stands to get 200 more agents in the next year, and more the year after that, and Radcliffe hopes his district can pick up some of them.
"We are, as far as alien arrivals at the airports are concerned, the fourth largest in the nation," he said.
