New security barriers save time, money, environment

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  It's official - even force protection has gone green.

New vehicle access control barriers have been appearing around base, and will save RAF Mildenhall and the U.S. Air Force both time and money.

"The barriers, which are solar and wind-powered, will be used to filter and control vehicles and provide force protection to the base," said Howard Rudkin, 100th Civil Engineer Squadron asset management flight chief, from Newmarket.

The new barriers can funnel traffic into specific directions and offer protection to the base. They also fulfill all the criteria needed for the installation barrier plan.

When the base transitions into certain threat conditions, buildings need to be secured. The installation of the new barriers was the easiest way to do this without costing a great deal of money, Rudkin said.

"We were originally using water barriers, which were degrading in the sun and starting to leak," he said. "To replace them would cost more than $266 each, and we needed 657 of them to do the barrier plan."

Each water barrier requires 220 British gallons of water, and 148,000 gallons of water is needed to fill them all. The water is not reusable afterwards, and must be dumped.

"Environmentally, it was killing us," Rudkin said. "We looked at another option, and worked with the 100th Security Forces Squadron and (100th Air Refueling Wing) Anti-terrorism office."

The new plan key-located the new barriers and sectorized the base. This means specific parts of the base can be closed off, leaving traffic to move freely around the rest of the base. The old method closed all entry and exit gates which brings traffic to a complete stand-still.

With the old barriers, it took more than 2,000 man-hours to put them all in place. Moreover, the fire department used 93 P-19 tankers (aircraft rescue firefighting vehicles, which hold 1,000 U.S. gallons of water), and took an average of three days to fill all the containers. During this time, the airfield also had to close since fire trucks weren't available to provide full support if any incidents occurred which required them to respond to the flightline, Rudkin said.

The new, green barriers take one person a maximum of one hour to put in-place. The self-contained barriers are made of steel and are manufactured locally, greatly reducing their carbon footprint. They are operated by both key fob and computer, and at the touch of a button, take no longer than five minutes to rise into position.

"The barrier system is vastly superior to the water barriers for one simple reason - it can be implemented almost immediately," said Staff Sgt. Jerome Barrett, 100th SFS physical security NCO in charge. "It's estimated to take the water barrier implementation approximately three weeks to set up, putting the 100th ARW and Team Mildenhall's vital resources at risk.

"This barrier system is also environmentally sound, running off solar and wind power with virtually no operating cost. In addition, there are several options built in that will allow us to adapt this system to other physical security projects alongside the anti-terrorism division efforts," Barrett said.

Being self-contained, the barriers can also be taken and installed anywhere in the world.

"Using this system in a deployed environment would greatly benefit security efforts," Barrett said. "These barriers are highly mobile; essentially, they are capable of being picked up and moved at a moment's notice. They would only require simple bolting and ramping, and need no connection to an external power supply."

The new barriers are also accessible to fire trucks and other emergency services, whereas the old water barriers were not.

At a cost of approximately $15,500 each, the barriers are electric-free and not hard-wired. This dramatically cuts electricity costs of other types of replacement barriers, and being fully encased means they are not susceptible to the weather, Rudkin said.

"It also has a manual back-up. If it locks up, we can still pump it up and down to make it work. It's still much faster than the old barriers, and they only require annual servicing," he said.

The barriers provide another opportunity to protect the base.

"They're also very safe," Rudkin said. "If somebody walks up to (the barrier) when it's coming up, there's a sensor on it so it will immediately stop and go back down again. Likewise, if somebody is coming up to it and the ramp is going down, it will immediately stop, so nobody can trap their foot under it."

"If a car is driving over it (when the barrier is flat on the ground) and the barrier has been activated, the sensor will detect the vehicle on top and the ramp will immediately go back down," Rudkin said.

Once clear, it immediately raises again.

"The 100th ARW has found a major money-saving idea that protects the base and helps save the environment. In today's Air Force, when every cent counts, this can only be a win-win situation." he said.