By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

Within the coming year, 10,000 to 15,000 individuals working in a port-related industry and needing access to a secured area in Charleston will require a valid Transportation Worker Identified Credential.

The problem is that a little more than a year before the Sept. 25, 2008, deadline, no one, not even the federal contractor handling the program, is quite sure of the logistics of the credentialing process.

“We’ve been told we’ll have plenty of time to react, but so far I haven’t heard of any firm plans on how to go out and get one,” said Michael Shier, operations manager for Continuum Transportation in Ladson. “It’s not unnerving, there’s still plenty of time, but right now there isn’t any way to comply with the federal requirement.”

The Transportation Worker Identification Credential program is a joint Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Coast Guard initiative. Under the initiative, maritime workers requiring unescorted access to secure areas of port facilities and those working on vessels regulated under the Maritime Transportation Security Act must acquire and hold one of the new IDs.

The cost of the tamper-resistant biometric credential is $137.50, and in order to get one, individuals in the industry must provide biographic and biometric information such as fingerprints, sit for a digital photograph, and pass a security threat assessment conducted by the TSA.

While the program was scheduled to start last spring, delays in determining the most effective way to roll it out in varied and unique port communities across the nation pushed the deadline back. Nationwide, a total of 750,000 individuals will eventually have to acquire a credential.

Among those covered locally by the program are ports authority personnel, truck drivers, longshoremen, stevedores and the crews of the tugs that guide cargo ships to and from Charleston Harbor.

J. Corwin Pharr, vice president and director of government relations for the Maritime Association of the Port of Charleston, said that right now, it appears that the TSA will initially use three mobile enrollment centers to register port workers at places they gather, like the International Longshoreman’s Hall on Morrison Drive.

Then, the agency will establish a permanent enrollment center, most likely on or near the grounds of the old Charleston Naval Base, and adjacent to the new port terminal being built there.

“We’re just waiting on the green light for (enrollment) to begin,” Pharr said.

Sergio Fedelini, vice president of Mediterranean Shipping Co. (USA) Inc., said truck drivers and independent contractors will bear the brunt of the program’s implementation because they’re also the class of workers who’ll have to cover their own credential costs.

But even port workers with established companies might have to shell out the $137.50, at least initially, he said.

“That’s because the TWIC card is going to be issued in the individual’s name and if he leaves one company to go to another, the TWIC card goes with him,” Fedelini said. “As a result, I think many companies are going to tell the employee to purchase the card himself, and then might offer to refund the cost based on the length of time the driver stays with the company.”

Patrick Barber, president of both Superior Transportation of Charleston and the Charleston Motor Carriers Association, said he’s decided to pay for his drivers’ cards, but would deduct the cost of the card from a driver’s final paycheck if he decided to leave.

“From my perspective, our paying for the card is an incentive for someone to come to work for our company,” he said.

ILA dockworkers won’t have a similar safe harbor from the fee; as independent contractors they’ll have to consider the price of the card the cost of doing business.

Michael Fowler, president of the Rogers & Brown logistics firm in Charleston, offered another perspective.

Although Fowler’s company and customers are only indirectly impacted by the program, he believes the independent truck owner/operators and trucking companies might seek to raise their rates and pass the cost of the card onto their customers.

“If they can do that, I would think this charge would be relatively inconsequential in the whole scheme of things,” he said.

A common theme sounded by members of the waterfront community is that the relative timing of the implementation of the TWIC card program in individual port cities could be the biggest determinant of its impact.

“If, as the program is rolled out, a TWIC card is required in one port but not a neighboring port, and a truck driver services both, that could be a real hardship because he might have to make a return trip to a port just to pick up his credential, costing him both time and money,” Fedelini said.

That scenario assumes that the port not yet requiring the card also does not have a TWIC card office open yet, but it could happen, he suggested.

“Therefore, when the TWIC card becomes mandatory, it should become mandatory at all ports in the country at once, or at least in all ports within a large geographic region such as the entire Atlantic Coast, the Gulf coast or the West Coast ports,” he said.

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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