(The following article by John Stark was posted on the Bellingham Herald website on January 4.)
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Traffic flow across the U.S.-Canada border should continue to improve in 2004 as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to add both personnel and high-tech surveillance gear, department officials say.
Looking ahead
This is the final story in a weeklong series by The Herald that has examined people and issues to watch in 2004.
Whatcom County’s four border crossings will get an additional 27 Homeland Security officers between now and the middle of 2004, said Jerry Jensen, assistant area port director for Homeland Security.
The new federal agency took shape last March through a combination of all or part of 22 formerly separate agencies that included customs and immigration services, along with border inspectors formerly under the authority of the Department of Agriculture.
Already, staffing levels for port-of-entry inspections in Whatcom County are more than double what they were on Sept. 11, 2001, when the terrorist attacks meant new levels of scrutiny for people and cargo entering this country.
The U.S. Border Patrol, which polices the boundary between the ports of entry, has also seen major increases.
In today’s heightened “Code Orange” security environment, border officials don’t want to provide specific information on their staffing levels.
“I’m just going to say it’s more than doubled,” said Peg Fearon, area port director. “We don’t give out numbers.”
For a time, it seemed as though security concerns might permanently impede the flow of goods and people across the border and depress the border economy. While border crossing for passenger cars are still well below their peaks of the mid-1990s, local Homeland Security officials say that has more to do with Canadian exchange rates than traffic jams at the ports of entry.
Jay Brandt, assistant area port director, said travelers entering or returning to this country may face more questions from inspectors as they arrive at the booths, but overall delays are no worse than they were before the crackdown because increased staffing mean more lanes are open.
Jensen said wait times can still be as long as two hours during peak periods, such as the busy shopping days just before and after Christmas, but delays should be tolerable at other times.
New gear
Major investments in technology are helping to make border crossings both smooth and secure, officials say. In a buildup that was under way even before 2001, federal agencies have invested about $100 million installing Vehicle and Cargo Inspection Systems at entry points around the country.
The system, known by its VACIS initials, uses gamma rays to probe the interiors of trucks, cargo containers and railroad cars. The system produces an X-ray-like image that enables inspectors to make sure a truck or rail car’s contents are what they are supposed to be, but unlike X-rays, the VACIS system can peek through metal walls.
The system has been used to detect everything from smuggled drugs to stolen cars inside trucks, boxcars and cargo containers, and could detect weapons of mass destruction if it came to that, Jensen said.
So far it hasn’t. But at Blaine and elsewhere along U.S. borders, federal officials are taking the risk of a worst-case scenario seriously.
All trucks crossing into the United States are now driving through a radiation detection system designed to warn of nuclear warheads or radioactive materials that could be used to spread contamination by means of a “dirty bomb.”
A similar system to check cars and buses is scheduled to be built at local ports of entry in the coming year. Jensen said the vehicles will pass through the system as they queue up for the inspection booths, with no additional delays anticipated.
For now, inspectors are checking passenger vehicles with handheld radiation detectors.
FAST trucks
Also in the coming year, local border officials say they hope their “Free and Secure Trade” system for trucks, known by its initials FAST, will become more widely used and help ease cargo congestion at border crossings.
Under the FAST system, truck drivers, companies and importers who qualify can get advance security clearances that will provide express-lane treatment at the border. Brandt said the system has been little-used so far because no special lane has been available for FAST trucks, but local officials hope such a lane can be put in use during peak periods this year.
Officials say they would also like to see more motorists obtain the NEXUS security clearance pass in the coming year. When that system began in 2002, officials said they hoped enrollment would surpass 100,000, but so far it is only 35,000.
Jensen said it’s likely that because economic conditions are giving Canadians less reason to come south, fewer people are interested in going through the red tape involved in a NEXUS application.
Brandt said the new mindset on border security is to make the border checkpoint the last line of defense, rather than the first. The Department of Homeland Security now emphasizes pre-inspection of cargoes in foreign ports, and advance notice of coming truck and rail shipments from customs brokers.
“The more we know about what’s coming before it gets here, the better,” Brandt said.
Slow trains
But heightened security can also mean new headaches.
In Blaine, city residents and emergency officials are trying to adjust to problems caused by the VACIS train inspection system installed just south of town. Trains slow to a crawl as they pass through the system, resulting in extended blockage of the Bell Road crossing that is on a major thoroughfare linking Blaine to Birch Bay and Semiahmoo.
Fearon acknowledged that the situation was difficult for local residents early last fall when the system was first installed. Since then, she said, the waits average no more than eight or nine minutes per train.
Blaine City Manager Gary Tomsicsaid the situation still rankles.
“It was placed there without any thought given to the impacts on the community,” he said. “It was just a mistake.”
City officials hope they can convince the federal government to move the rail VACIS system to a less disruptive spot, but Tomsic said border officials have not been eager to shoulder that cost.
Fearon said she hopes that and other headaches will ease in the coming year.
“Certainly we’re better off than we were a year ago, and we’ll be better off a year from now,” she said.