U.S. Invites Other Countries Here To Show Them How It’s Done
The premiere United States group working on detection and deterrence of nuclear smuggling, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, is bringing 5 representatives from Egypt’s Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority in order to showcase Bulgaria’s outstanding system. The teams will be in Bulgaria August 18-24, 2019.
The training is possible thanks to a 2016 successful implementation of 27 U.S.-made radiation detection systems across Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s nuclear detection architecture now enhances efforts to prevent smuggling of dangerous radioactive materials across its borders.
Since 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has partnered with the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior/Chief Directorate of Border Police (MOI/CDBP) to jointly deploy fixed and mobile radiation detection systems to official and unofficial locations along Bulgaria’s borders, as well as at Bulgaria’s international airports. More than 3,000 front-line officers have trained to operate these systems and respond to radiation alarms. In addition, an information system now transmits alarm data from detection locations to MOI/CDBP national and regional headquarters. This multilayered nuclear detection architecture enables MOI/CDBP to deter, detect, and investigate illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials at all of Bulgaria’s major points-of-entry (POE).
