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Detectors in U.S. cities check air for germ and chemical
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 10 - 01 - 2007

When a mysterious odor swept through the city this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg quickly appeared on television to reassure unnerved New Yorkers that the gas _ whatever it was _ was harmless, according to The Associated Press.
The pronouncement was more than guesswork.
Over the past three years, the U.S. government has
deployed hundreds of air-sniffing sensors in at least 30
metropolitan areas in an attempt to create an early warning
system for a chemical or biological attack. In some cities,
the devices test the air 24 hours a day for traces of
anthrax, smallpox and other deadly germs.
Most of these monitoring networks are still in a fledgling
stage, and authorities caution that they have their
limitations. But the surveillance network has been steadily
improving.
In some big cities, including New York, Boston and
Washington, monitors have been installed in major train and
subway stations to sample the air for chemical poisons or
explosive gases. Environmental agencies have been given
portable air sensors that can be driven around in vans or
carried by hand.
Wireless technology may soon make it possible for the
machines to do automatic testing on site and relay the
results to a central monitor, eliminating the need to carry
samples to a lab.
«Our objective is to make it an almost instantaneous
result,» said Christopher Kelly, a spokesman for the
Department of Homeland Security's science and technology
division.
Researchers are also working on something called the
Rapidly Deployable Chemical Detection System, portable
devices that can search for deadly chemical agents from
both ground level and airborne craft.
The system has its limits.
Among them, the devices are at the whim of wind patterns
and can only detect substances that have already been
released into that there are far too few
monitors in place. A report by the EPA's inspector general
raised questions in 2005 about the reliability and
efficiency of what was then a $129 million (¤99.32 million)
BioWatch program.
Criticism of the system has lessened somewhat, however, as
its technology has improved.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs New
York City's subways, was pleased enough with the
performance of the chemical and biological detectors it
installed in Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania
Station that it recently decided to spend an additional
$3.9 million (¤3 million) on the system.


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