Electric Boat will purchase a new patrol boat for its security organization. East Lyme will replace one of its small patrol boats used to respond to incidents on the water and to help enforce the security zone around Millstone Power Station.

Waterford will upgrade its radio communications system shared among marine units in the region. And Cross Sound Ferry will keep up its surveillance camera and wireless systems on board its ferries and at its terminals.

That's how about $400,000, or less than half of a percent, of the $100 million available this year through the Department of Homeland Security's Port Security Grant Program will be spent.

Funding through the program, according to its website, is "intended to improve port-wide maritime security risk management; enhance maritime domain awareness; support maritime security training and exercises; and to maintain or reestablish maritime security mitigation protocols that support port recovery and resiliency capabilities."

Statewide, Connecticut received around $2 million through the program, and an additional $10 million in other emergency preparedness funding, totaling $12.4 million, Connecticut's delegation, all Democrats, announced Wednesday. 

FEMA administers the funding directly to awardees.

The delegation says the funding will "enhance the capacity of state and local emergency responders to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from potential terrorist attacks, major natural disasters, and other emergencies."

Coast Guard personnel are responsible for reviewing and evaluating port security grant requests within what is called their "captain of the port zone." The zone that covers this area stretches about 200 nautical miles from Port Chester, N.Y. to Watch Hill, R.I., and includes much of Long Island. 

The zone submitted 39 projects, of which 22 were funded, said retired Coast Guard captain Scot Graham, port security specialist for Cost Guard Sector Long Island Sound. The priority is to sustain current capabilities, Graham said.

While some may question why a certain entity needs a new patrol boat, he continued, that entity might have a patrol boat that is "22, 23, 25 years old, that's the end of its life. From a government perspective to replace that boat is a sustainment of a current capability."

Graham said local Coast Guard officials thought the funding this area received represented a balanced distribution of the total port security funding, given that New London's port is not nearly as big as ports in New York or New Orleans, for example.

But New London's port "is a very significant port area in the aggregate," he said, noting the presence of Millstone, EB, the Naval Submarine Base, the passenger ferries, commercial cargo coming into State Pier, rail and other entities all within a short distance of one another.

"New London has a lot of significant infrastructure and key resources that we have to protect," Graham said.

The New London Port Area Marine Group is an organized effort by municipalities, tribes and private companies from southeastern Connecticut that jointly has secured millions of dollars in funding from the port security program.

Past funding obtained through the program has paid for equipment ranging from surveillance cameras and fences at State Pier in New London to patrol boats for police and fire departments, such as a $700,000 state-of-the-art firefighting boat at the Mystic Fire Department.

The group was officially chartered in 2011, "to serve as a confederation of local public and private sector organizations sharing responsibility for protecting the New London port area and the surrounding marine transportation system from a wide range of natural and man-made hazards/risks."

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman