Likely a key element in homeland defense, and SensorNet takes full advantage of it.
Whether placed at the Watt Road weigh station -- which has some of the highest truck traffic in the nation with 28,000 trucks per day -- for ferreting out transport of radiological and nuclear material; or high atop a cell tower in the Northeast to detect hazardous plumes, their direction and likely targets, the SensorNet technology is attracting a snowballing level of attention.
"In March we had only one little thing going and now we've got a number of locations -- in Washington, D.C., on Watt Road, New York is building and Y-12 is very interested, and we had an inquiry from the DOE Kansas City Plant," said Jim Kulesz, program manager in the computational and engineering division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
"We've found it to be a snowballing effect, as the word gets out more and more want to participate."
In March the technology developed to detect chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats -- and to provide warnings from one of the more prolific technology infrastructures, the cell phone towers -- was field-tested in Tennessee, and recently received a boost in funding, though not nearly as much as hoped.
The Department of Defense budget allotted $3 million to the SensorNet initiative. Officials had planned for about $10 million in congressional support.
So priorities are being rearranged.
Congressman Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, said Monday that the $10 million request was to put the technology into operation. "Three million is not what we asked for, but it's a start," said Wamp, who noted many entities around the country have what they think is the "technology of the future" and that the Defense Department has been swamped with requests.
"This (allocation) is a step in the right direction. It starts the process of deployment," said Wamp.
Rather than a fuller implementation, "our priority will make use of funding to build the architectural backbone of the SensorNet," said Kulesz.
"Basically we're pretty busy running around," he said. "It all happened since March; it's a running freight train we're trying to keep up with."
There's also a sense of urgency to find other funding sources.
"We want to accelerate this process because the technology is available to do something right now and we basically need to get on with it," said Kulesz.
Currently the lab is in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dovetail instrumentation. NOAH installs measuring stations in urban areas to study such things as wind currents and flow, and ORNL piggybacks with chemical and radiological detectors.
"NOAH has about 20 locations, including in D.C., and we'll probably instrument 16 or more of those," said Kulesz.
In addition, talks are under way with safeguards and security personnel at both ORNL and the Y-12 National Security Complex, and a joint effort is under way with the Department of Transportation's Intelligent Transportation System to collect information to assist law enforcement agencies.
The New York/New Jersey Port Authority is in the early stages of exploring ORNL's SensorNet systems, and the city of Atlanta, through a congressional office, has made serious inquiries, according to Kulesz. The Department of Energy's Kansas City Plant in Missouri has requested information.
"The bottom line is that we take this seriously," said Kulesz, who testified on the issue before a Homeland Security Panel in Nashville in the spring. "There have been terrorist attacks, and the threat is real. The lab was founded in a wartime setting and basically we feel an obligation to participate and help where we can."
R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or danielsrcd@oakridger.com.
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