GAO: Radiation portal monitor cost-benefit analysis inadequate
A Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday paints a damning picture of the federal government's decision-making process in developing and deploying radiation detection portals at U.S. seaports.
GAO examined a cost-benefit analysis by the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), whose duties include acquiring and supporting the deployment of radiation detection equipment, and found that the analysis was inadequate to allow the government to make decisions on radiation portal monitors.
The report suggests that DNDO, formed in 2005 by the Bush administration as a spin-off of the Department of Homeland Security, 'relied on assumptions' of emerging radiation portal monitor technology rather than its own performance tests.
'DNDO’s cost-benefit analysis does not provide a sound analytical basis for DNDO’s decision to purchase and deploy new portal monitor technology,' the report said. 'DNDO did not use the results of its own performance tests in its cost-benefit analysis and instead relied on assumptions of the new technology’s anticipated performance level. Performance tests also showed that the ability of new radiation detection portal monitors to correctly identify masked (dangerous nuclear materials, such as highly enriched uranium (HEU), placed next to or within another, usually more benign, radiological substance) was even more limited.
'According to the cost-benefit analysis and radiation detection experts to whom we spoke, masked HEU is a significant concern because it is difficult to detect. DNDO also focused the analysis exclusively on identifying HEU and did not consider in the analysis how well (either as a goal or in testing) new portal monitor technology can correctly detect or identify other dangerous radiological or nuclear materials. Furthermore, the analysis did not include the results from side-by-side tests that DNDO conducted of the advanced portal monitors and current portal monitors. The cost-benefit analysis for acquiring and deploying portal monitors is also incomplete because it does not include all of the major costs and benefits required by DHS guidelines. In particular, DNDO did not assess the likelihood that radiation detection equipment would either misidentify or fail to detect nuclear or radiological material. Rather, it focused its analysis on reducing the time necessary to screen traffic at border check points and reduce the impact of any delays on commerce.'
In July 2006, DHS said it had awarded contracts to three vendors to further develop and purchase $1.2 billion worth of new portal monitors over five years. For fiscal year 2007, DNDO plans to acquire the first installment of 104 new portal monitors that use new identification technology at a cost of $80.2 million. Congress, however, has curtailed DNDO’s ability to do so by restricting the availability of funding for full-scale procurement of new radiation detection portal monitors until DHS certifies that a significant increase in operational effectiveness will be achieved, the report said.
The full report is available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07133r.pdf .
