Houston petchems gain anti-terrorism programme

13 August 2008 23:03  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--Houston's concentration of refineries and chemical plants have prompted the city's choice as the location for an anti-terrorism pilot programme, government officials said on Wednesday.

Under the programme, several agencies will cooperate to prevent and to counter attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), said Bob Stephan, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection in the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Stephan was speaking at a news conference which introduced the programme, called the Houston Multi-Jurisdiction Improvised Explosive Device Security Plan.

The devices are bombs made of commonly found materials, he said. Instructions to make the bombs  are easily found on the Internet, he said.

"The devices are a tough nut to crack," Stephan said. "We see this as the number-one terrorist tactic."

Houston's concentration of hospitals, schools, water plants and industry could make it a tempting target for such an attack, said Sheila Jackson Lee, US representative (Democrat, Texas).

Jackson Lee is also the chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation, Security and Infrastructure Protection.

"You are in the eye of a terrorist storm," she said.

Houston is the nation's hub for the entry and distribution of crude oil and natural gas as well as the producton of petrochemicals.

Companies and other private entities own 85% of the facilities considered critical by the pilot programme, Stephan said.

The programme's strength is its use of local, state and federal agencies, he said: "These threats cannot be countered by anyone acting alone."

In a couple of months, similar programmes will be introduced in the Chicago and Capitol areas, Stephan said. Ultimately, six to eight major metropolitan areas could participate in such programmes within a year.

The department has started similar programmes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Denver, Colorado, because each are hosting the national conventions of the major US political parties, Stephan said.

However, those programmes are limited in scope, because they were intended solely for the conventions, he said.

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By: Al Greenwood
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