Copyright 2002 The Denver Post All Rights Reserved
The Denver Post
May 30, 2002 Thursday 1ST EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-21
LENGTH: 669 words
HEADLINE:
Airports say deadline for bag screening too soon DIA director, others ask
transportation chief for more time
BYLINE: By
Jeffrey Leib, Denver Post Staff Writer,
BODY: Many major U.S. airports can't meet the Dec. 31 deadline
for screening all checked luggage without causing severe disruption
to the traveling public.
In a letter
Wednesday to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, directors of 39
airports, including Denver International Airport, said: 'We strongly
encourage you to seek some form of legislative relief from the
impending baggage-screening deadline.'
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York
and Washington, Congress passed a far-reaching aviation security
law that said all checked luggage must be screened for explosives
by the end of this year. Now, just a small fraction of bags
are screened.
The government's newly formed
Transportation Security Administration acknowledged there will not be
enough large explosives-detection machines, which cost as much as $ 1
million each, built and installed by the end of the year to offer
100 percent screening of bags.
As a stopgap
measure, the government approved the use of smaller, cheaper
explosives-detection devices that look for traces of explosive
materials instead of bulk amounts.
But Denver Aviation
Manager Bruce Baumgartner, who signed Wednesday's letter to Mineta,
said it would take at least 130 trace-detection machines and 500
operators of those machines for each shift to screen the 8,000 bags
an hour that passengers check in Denver.
That would clog the areas near DIA's ticket counters,
extend the passenger lines at those counters and most likely
disrupt airline schedules, Baumgartner said.
DIA now has three of the large explosives-detection
machines near the ticket counters and would need as many as 40 of
them to screen all bags.
Congress must
approve any changes to the Dec. 31 deadline. However, Gary Burns, a
spokesman for Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who chairs the House aviation
subcommittee, said Mica does not favor extending it.
'One virtue of having deadlines in the aviation security
act is that it keeps the pressure on for putting in place real
and effective security measures,' Burns said. 'The chairman is
very aware that it's a tremendously difficult task ahead of us.'
At DIA, officials say the proper
explosives-detection solution involves installing large, automated
detection machines as part of the flow of checked luggage to planes -
away from passengers and ticketing counters.
Such a system could cost between $ 86 million and $
130 million, depending on which machines are approved for use at
DIA, and it could not be acquired and installed by Dec. 31,
Baumgartner said. The government will pay for the machines, but
Congress still has not earmarked enough money to cover installation
at all airports.
In their letter to Mineta, leaders
from airports including Dallas; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Phoenix and
St. Louis, said integrating the automated detection systems with
baggage conveyors is the only workable approach. The airports that
signed off on the Mineta letter handle about two-thirds of U.S. air
traffic.
'Unfortunately, as you can fully appreciate,
we cannot make the significant terminal modifications that will be
necessary to accommodate the necessary machines and manpower by the
Dec. 31 deadline,' they said. 'We do not favor harried installations
of (explosives-detection) machines - at those few places where
any space is even available - that promise to disrupt passenger
flows and further increase the hassle of air travel.'
'We're not against aviation security; we're against
thrashing around,' Baumgartner added. 'I want to do it right the
first time.'
Mineta had not seen the letter
by late Wednesday afternoon, Transportation Department spokesman
Leonardo Alcivar said.
But Alcivar said there is no
change in his department's mandate: 'This administration is going to
meet the deadlines for maximizing aviation security required by
Congress.'
Document 64 of 81. 