T to receive $15 million security grant

WASHINGTON -- Federal homeland security officials announced yesterday that the MBTA will receive $15 million to bolster security on trains and buses, the largest single security grant the T has ever received, as part of an effort to beef up "high-risk and high-consequence areas" underground and underwater.

In addition, the Port of Boston was elevated to a higher-risk category by the US Department of Homeland Security, making it eligible to seek a larger share of federal funding when maritime security grants are awarded later this year. Officials stressed, however, that the new ranking did not indicate any new threat.

The T plans to use its new funding to increase security around rail and bus yards, enhance video surveillance at stations, and expand a pilot program for a system used to detect biological, nuclear, radiological, and explosive material in the subway system, officials said.

The grant will also allow the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to improve security on buses, which could include adding surveillance cameras, something the T is doing on its new buses.

Overall, federal security aid to the T will increase from $11 million last year to $15.3 million this year, documents show. Since fiscal 2003, the T has received $29 million under what is called the Transit Security Grant Program.

"This is very good news," said Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

The MBTA was among eight highest-risk transit agencies to receive the transit security grants, one element of a larger grant program designed to protect critical infrastructure.

Other transit agencies awarded grants include the one serving the New York-Connecticut-New Jersey area, $61 million; the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore-Northern Virginia region, $18.2 million; the San Francisco Bay area, $13.8 million; and Chicago, $12.8 million.

"We want to focus on developing countermeasures against improvised explosive devices, as well as biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear attacks," Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, told reporters in Washington.

Also, the Boston ferry service will receive $400,000 this year, while Martha's Vineyard ferries will receive $274,000, according to department documents.

In rolling out its annual formula for making homeland security grants, the department also announced it will now rank the Port of Boston in the second-highest risk category for maritime security, up from the fourth, or last, tier.

That low ranking resulted in the port receiving only $147,750 in federal homeland security grants last year, less than 5 percent of the total amount Massachusetts had applied for.

In being designated a Tier 2 port, however, Boston will now be eligible to compete for a much larger pot of money, $40 million in 2007 instead of $25 million in 2006, according to US Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat and senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Bender reported from Washington; Daniel from Boston.