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Port Authority Receives $2.65 Million for Security

Posted on: Saturday, 17 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 17--The Jacksonville Port Authority has received $2.65 million from a federal program designed to help ports protect themselves from sabotage.

The bulk of the money, which was given by the Department of Homeland Security, will be used to build a new center to consolidate the security operations scattered among the port authority's various facilities, including the terminals at Talleyrand and Blount Island.

Port officials are unsure exactly where the $2 million center will be built, although the port's security director said it most likely would be toward the northern part of port property, near the cruise terminal at Dames Point or the cargo facility at Blount Island.

"It will tie together our three distinct terminals," Chris Kauffmann, the Port Authority's senior director of terminal operations and seaport security, said about the building, which will probably be about 5,000 square feet. "It will help us have a more sustained, robust security capability for the future."

A $580,000 chunk of the grant money will be used to add cameras that can be used in low-light areas of the port, and another $192,000 will go for two police boats equipped with sonar equipment that can be used for pier-side security. (The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has marine officers that patrol the river when cruise ships are sailing in and out of the port, but the new boats will allow the port to do more general security tasks, Kauffmann said.)

The authority will kick in its own money -- the federal government requires it to match at least 20 percent of the grant -- spending $500,000 on the security center, $116,000 on the cameras and $48,000 for the boats.

This is the fifth time the Department of Homeland Security has handed out money as part of the Port Security Grant Program, with the Jacksonville Port Authority getting about $5.6 million over the past several years. That money has been used at the individual terminals, port officials said, going toward fencing, lighting, closed-circuit television and access control systems.

This year, only 66 ports -- of the 360 federally regulated ones -- were eligible for the money, based on how much of a risk they face. Thirty-six ports ended up splitting $141 million.

The program is narrowly focused on protecting the physical infrastructure, said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short, particularly defending against improvised explosives that might be delivered by truck or boat.

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Source: The Florida Times-Union

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