UPDATE: Secure Freight Initiative expands to Hong Kong

UPDATE: Secure Freight Initiative expands to Hong Kong U.S. and Hong Kong officials have reached agreement to include the port city’s Modern Terminal in a cargo security pilot program for imaging and radiation scanning ocean containers before loading on U.S.-bound vessels, according to Todd Horton, director of international container security for the Secure Freight Initiative.
   The demonstration program is being managed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at six other ports, three of them on a limited basis. So far containers are being scanned at the Port Qasim, Pakistan, and Puerto Cortes, Honduras. Operational testing will begin at the Port of Southampton in the United Kingdom in late August, Horton said.
   Although Hong Kong International Terminal has previously tested its on own initiative integrated X-ray and radiation portal monitor technology for capturing readouts of containers, it is not included in the feasibility study at the moment. Wednesday’s Shippers’ NewsWire incorrectly suggested that both terminals would participate in the Secure Freight Initiative.
   Horton said CBP is shooting to begin operational testing of the automated container inspection system by the end of October. CBP will first have to build a central alarm station in the Hong Kong Customs building to siphon off digital files of U.S.-bound containers from the rest of exports, and route them to the CBP team at the port and the National Targeting Center near Washington for risk analysis. CBP will also have to send engineers to Modern Terminal to set the drive-by radiation portal monitors to appropriate thresholds and establish information technology links before testing can begin, Horton said.
   Traffic will be scanned at the primary truck gate. Although Hong Kong processes about 13 percent of all ocean shipments entering the United States, Modern is smaller than other terminals there and represents about 1.3 percent of the overall outbound shipments to the United States, Horton said.
   Hong Kong actually laid the groundwork for 100 percent inspection as a private sector initiative, but was not originally included in the pilot program because of problems with the accuracy of radiation reads. The integrated scanning approach — which combines radiation and X-ray technology in one spot — was first demonstrated by Hutchison Port Holding’s Hong Kong International Terminal, Modern Terminal and their technology partner, San Diego-based SAIC. Together they proved in 2005 that a system could simultaneously collect physical evidence on containers as trucks pulled into the terminal at roughly 10 mph to 15 mph. But the testing was limited to data capture and was not analyzed, transmitted to customs authorities or used to single out trucks with contraband for follow-up inspections.
   DHS did not embrace the idea until Congress got involved in the Dubai Ports World controversy over managing U.S. port facilities last year. Hong Kong was left out of the pilot program because DHS technicians discovered that background levels of radiation from the wharf’s cement were extremely high, because the builders used granite instead of limestone in the cement mix. Modern has since dug up the cement and replaced the pad with a new, sterile concrete that won’t set off as many nuisance alarms on the radiation portal monitors. Hong Kong International Terminal has not decided yet whether to follow suit.
   Hong Kong currently assists the U.S. cargo security effort through the Container Security Initiative.
   It does more business with the United States than any other port in the world. In fiscal year 2006, it processed more than 1.3 million shipments bound for the United States, equal to 13 percent of all arriving shipments, according to CBP.
   The agency corrected its previous statement that Hong Kong accounts for 11.5 percent of import shipments when contacted by a reporter.