Drinking Water Vulnerability Assessments for The United States Marine Corps

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has spent a considerable amount of time and resources examining the safety and security of assets associated with critical infrastructure systems across the country. Based in part on intelligence reports documenting the types of targets of interest to terrorist groups, the federal government determined that threats to potable water systems pose a credible risk to the safety and security of our nation.

On June 12, 2002, President Bush signed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (Bioterrorism Act) into Law (PL 107-188). Section 401 of that act amended the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) by adding section 1433(a), which requires all community public water systems (including military installations) serving 3,300 people or more to conduct Vulnerability Assessments (VAs), certify to EPA that the VAs were conducted, and submit a copy of the VA to EPA. In addition to the requirements of the Bioterrorism Response Act, Department of Defense (DoD) Antiterrorism Standards 2000.16 and DoD Instruction 2000.18 require DoD installations to conduct annual facility-wide VAs to evaluate susceptibility to potential threats and identify corrective actions. These VAs include the drinking water supply and must take into account the vulnerability of the water supply, the control system, the distribution system, and the treatment system to develop a prioritized plan for mitigating any risk and/or vulnerability to the system.

Battelle has recently conducted VAs for United States Marine Corps (USMC) Headquarters on seven potable water systems at five Marine Corps facilities including Marine Corps Logistic Base (MCLB) Albany, MCLB Barstow, Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort, The Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms. For these assessments, Battelle adopted a hybrid approach that combined attributes of RAM-W™ method developed by Sandia National Laboratory and a methodology developed through collaboration between the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. EPA Drinking Water Academy, and the National Rural Water Association (NRWA) for water systems serving populations between 3,300 and 10,000. The approach consisted of:

• Identifying critical installations/assets requiring protection. This included detailed discussions with the base in order to ensure that system operations were fully understood and that critical installations/assets were identified;
• Identifying the protection measures in place at each critical installation;
• Identifying vulnerabilities associated with existing security measures; and
• Recommending enhancements to the physical security of the potable water infrastructure to address the identified vulnerabilities.

Battelle conducted interviews and discussions with facility staff to identify the threats to critical installations and assets. Threat assumptions were founded on reasonable assessments of the potential intentions, motivations, and capabilities of likely adversaries. Assessment activities and recommendations were conducted in order to be consistent with the perspective of base security. Recommendations for addressing the vulnerabilities identified during these assessments were designed to enhance deterrence and detection in accordance with the USMC protection strategy and were presented in reports that satisfied the VA requirements of both EPA and the DoD.

For more information on Battelle’s capabilities in water system vulnerability assessments, contact Dr. Bruce Alleman at (614) 424-5715, allemanb@battelle.org.