By NANCY HILER
"I've made it my mission to keep Long Island protected," Stoff said. "I'm obsessed with security." Besides heading up the trade association, the longtime Bellmore resident is an ocean shipping and logistics specialist for K Line America, a subsidiary of Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the global transportation company.
As part of her mission, Stoff said, the LIIEA is working with the Long Island Homeland Security Team to help the area remain secure from terrorism. "It's very important for all of us living on Long Island to understand the impact of import/export trade on our security," she said.
"We're trying to build a closer relationship between the export/import industry and law enforcement," explained Lt. Ronald Walsh of the Nassau County Police Department. Walsh heads the county's Security/Police Information Network, or SPIN, a localized homeland security and public safety information-gathering and investigative initiative that has operated largely behind the scenes to "connect the dots" since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The L.I. Team comprises SPIN, the Suffolk County Police Department's regional homeland security unit, New York state's Operation Safeguard anti-terrorism outreach group, the local U.S. Coast Guard operation and the New York State Office of Homeland Security.
Together, their goal is to identify and eliminate Long Island's vulnerabilities. A major part of this is collecting "as much information as possible from all types of sources, public and private, and making connections," Walsh explained. "We're opening doors and building bridges," he commented. He considers the LIIEA to be an important private-sector information source.
Team meets
The Long Island Homeland Security Team got together last month to talk about preventing terrorism on Long Island at an LIIEA-sponsored conference at the Huntington Hilton. "The LIIEA welcomed us with open arms," Walsh said.
Stoff and her import/export industry colleagues deal with the monitoring of cargo and other port security issues on a daily basis. A security "point system" is used, and an extensive checklist must be completed before any freight is allowed on a ship bound for the U.S., she explained. "If everything is not documented correctly, we won't take it on the ship," she said.
At the conference, LIIEA members learned how they and their companies could best assist law enforcement to improve security Island-wide. This included understanding how to recognize certain indicators of potential terrorist planning activities and reporting them.
Overseas trade passes through more than 300 ports of entry, with more than 2 .5 million rail cars and more than 11 million containers entering the U.S. every year, the CBP reports.
"Freight from all over the world that has passed through New York and other ports in our region often winds up in container trucks on the Long Island Expressway or Sunrise Highway," Stoff pointed out. Some 190,000 container vessels arrive at U.S. seaports annually, she said, according to a presentation given by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Those are amazing numbers," Stoff said. "The DHS has a huge task to perform to keep us all safe."
Both Stoff and Walsh say that no security system will ever be perfect. "We can't possibly inspect every piece of cargo coming from every port, or no freight will move," Stoff said. Still, strengthening relationships and communication with the import/export industry "really helps close loopholes," Walsh said.
Alert action
One way this is being done is through a specialized e-mail alert system recently put in place. "If something is going on, we are alerted immediately," Stoff said. And her industry is using the system to let law enforcement know if there is something unusual about any freight, she said. Examples of this include "if it's a new product or coming from a new factory, or if cargo is coming from a new port or new country or from a company that is not a major shipper," Stoff said.
The notification system has proven effective for Long Island security in other circumstances as well. One example Walsh gave was a hospital in Suffolk County that had a piece of medical equipment stolen, and an alert went out to those in fields related to medicine. As a result, when another area hospital reported the same item missing, it was no longer an isolated incident, but a catalyst for further investigation.
When the connection was made, authorities used the system to advise other industries, "including trucking, end users and, of course, import/export," Walsh said. Under normal circumstances, this kind of incident likely would have gone unnoticed, but private and public groups working together enable law enforcement to make these kinds of links, Walsh said.
"I live in Bellmore. Long Island is my home," Stoff said. "I want everyone to know that there's a team in place whose mission it is to protect Long Island. I think they should find that very comforting."
Comments about this story? NHiler@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 234.
