Labs work on ways to deter, detect explosives

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jul 8, 2005 | by William Brand, STAFF WRITER

The terrorist bombings in London showed graphically the formidable task that stopping these savage, random attacks presents to society, scientists working on the problem at the Bay Area's national laboratories said Thursday.

Bottom line, experts said: Explosives and the ingredients to create them are common in the modern world. They're fairly easy to obtain, easy to make, and at this point, detection is difficult.

Mining in the United States alone uses more than 4 billion pounds of TNT annually. Another mining explosive, Goma-2 Eco, apparently was used in the Madrid train terrorist bombs last year.

The news about explosives is dreary, but there have been breakthroughs in bomb, chemical and biological weapons detection, and more are coming:

Breakthroughs

-A device from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that accurately screens passengers for explosives is now in use at San Francisco International Airport. The next step, a lab scientist said, is to create an explosive detection portal that all boarding passengers would walk through just as they must pass through a metal detector today.

-Chemical weapons detectors, developed at the lab and Sandia National Laboratory/Livermore, are deployed in the Washington, D.C., Metro subway. A group at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore has been working on chemical detectors since the sarin chemical attacks by a cult in the Tokyo subway in 1995.

-MicroHound, a portable explosive sniffer developed by Sandia/ Alburquerque is being evaluated by law enforcement.

But this is just the beginning. High explosive experts at Lawrence Livermore and other government labs are developing a spectrum of new tests, including one they expect can be used easily by police officers and will be standard equipment in squad cars all over the United States and around the world.

"It will work just like a drug detection kit," one Bay Area scientist said. "An officer could slide it across door handles or a person and determine quickly if explosives are present.

"People tend to focus on high-technology solutions. But an explosive detection kit being worked on now would be dirt cheap, used just once. It would have a red light (for the presence of explosives) and a green light if no explosive traces are found."

A different problem

Susanne Gordon, a Sandia National Laboratory physicist in Livermore, who works on chemical and biological weapons detection, said explosive detectors are now used randomly at SFO. Walk- through, explosive detection portals also are being tested at a couple of airports, she said.

But subways and mass transit are an entirely different problem, Gordon said. At an airport, people expect to wait in line for screening, she said, "but imagine the line at a subway entrance."

Explosives leave traces that can be detected. But chemical and biological weapons, if well protected, are difficult to find, she said.

The best bet remains well-trained law officers and screeners.

Each of the scientists interviewed Thursday said the next time they're in London, they'll still take the Underground and ride other mass transit systems.

"I worry more about driving to work or riding my bicycle," one physicist said.

Statistically, the odds of death or injury are much higher in a car or on a bike, he said.

Contact William Brand at bbrand@angnewspapers.com.