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GAO: Radiation Monitors Unreliable
A government watchdog agency said Tuesday the Department of Homeland Security used "incomplete and unreliable data" to justify nearly $1.2 billion in contracts for radioactive and nuclear material testing monitors at the nation's borders. The finding by the Government Accountability Office could mean a delay in full-scale production funding for contractors Thermo Electron Corp., Raytheon Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems unit and Canberra Industries Inc.
The companies received the contracts in July to develop and test radiation screening equipment for trucks and cargo containers. The report concluded that DHS "relied on potential future performance to justify the purchase" of the machines.
Congressional budget staffers said Tuesday that because they were given a "heads-up" on the GAO findings, a provision was added to the $35 billion Homeland Security spending bill President Bush signed into law this month that prohibits full-scale production until DHS certifies "a significant increase in operational effectiveness."
A cost-benefit analysis had called for the monitors to identify hidden highly enriched and depleted uranium 95 percent of the time. But DHS test results showed the ID rates were never higher than 53 percent and were as low as 17 percent. The cost-benefit analysis also underestimated by about $181 million the life-cycle costs of the monitors, according to the GAO.
Story Continues Below In an Oct. 11 letter to the GAO, Vayl S. Oxford, director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, defended the initial detection rates, saying they "were not intended to determine the absolute capabilities of deployed systems," but instead were used to support initial contract awards. He added that the monitors will undergo additional testing before full-scale production "including the requirement for 95 percent probability of detection."
The GAO also faulted Oxford's office for failing to consider the machines' ability to detect nuclear and radioactive materials other than highly enriched uranium. Oxford's letter said because the uranium "poses the greatest challenge from a detection standpoint," it served as a "reasonable threat baseline."
Oxford e-mailed a statement late Tuesday that said DHS plans to comply with certification requests so that production can go forward.
The GAO report did not mention a related DHS program, under which $1.35 billion in contracts were awarded last month to three companies to develop nuclear-detecting scanners for containers at U.S. ports.
Shares of Thermo Electron rose 65 cents to $41.67 and Raytheon's fell 49 cents to $50.31 in trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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