Water Security
Testing and Evaluation

After September 11, 2001, various legislative and presidential directives enacted to protect drinking water consumers from chemical and biological attacks have required water utility companies to assess their vulnerability to terrorist attack, implement preventative measures, and develop emergency response plans to counteract terrorist acts. As a result, throughout the United States, water utility companies are considering how a terrorist could potentially access their water system and inflict lethal harm. Possible scenarios include attacks at the treatment plant, at large businesses or apartment complexes with localized water reservoirs, or at homes of consumers. Proper preventative measures against each possibility must be considered.

Water utilities and public safety groups (e.g., HAZMAT first responders, fire and police departments) need new technologies to help prevent, or at least minimize the impact of a possible terrorist attack. However, prospective technologies must first be identified and evaluated so that utilities and safety groups can make informed decisions regarding investments in the most effective technologies. Along with EPA, Battelle has been at the forefront of providing this sort of detailed information to water utility companies. Since 2002, Battelle has evaluated water security monitoring technologies under EPA’s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program. Testing involved the use of actual chemical and biological agents such as anthrax, botulinum toxin, ricin, plague, VX, and soman to ensure that test results reflect realistic terrorist scenarios. These tests are significant because many of these technologies have never been tested in the presence of live agents. Technology categories that have been tested include portable cyanide analyzers (two rounds), rapid toxicity testing systems, immunoassay test kits for pathogens and biotoxins, rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technologies, and multi-parameter water monitors for distribution systems.

In 2004, EPA took yet another step to address this need with the establishment of the Technology Testing and Evaluation Program (TTEP). As part of the first water security-related work under this contract, Battelle is performing a marketplace survey of commercially available water security technologies in technology areas such as detection and monitoring, distribution system decontamination, drinking water and wastewater treatment and decontamination, and software applications for modeling municipal water distribution systems. The results of this marketplace survey, including the key types of information that end users are interested in, are being compiled into a searchable technology tracking database. Battelle will be assisting EPA in evaluating this information by recommending specific products for immediate testing and evaluation and suggesting research and development projects that investigate general technology categories (rather than specific products) for applicability to the water security field. As part of TTEP, Battelle will support EPA by conducting commercial, off-the-shelf technology testing, designing a water testing pipe loop that can be used with live agents, and studying the application of technologies currently being used for other purposes, to problems associated with water security.

For more information, please contact Dr. Ryan James at (614) 424-7954, jamesr@battelle.org.