Contaminated drinking water on a U.S. military installation could adversely impact the health of
personnel and the mission of the installation. Localized and widespread illness and fatalities
resulting from contaminated drinking water could also generate a great deal of media attention,
nationally and internationally. Confidence in the military's ability to protect soldiers, their
families, and installation personnel from a terrorist attack would be greatly decreased. Since September 11, 2001, Army installation
staffs responsible for the safety of community drinking water systems have been searching for
guidance on how to develop better drinking water monitoring systems to detect an intentional
contamination event. Currently there is no sensory capability to guard against all possible cases
of intentional contamination. Until that capability is developed and validated, Army utilities
have been advised to focus on more conventional water quality indicators to gage water quality.
Advised actions to take have included increasing measurements both in number of locations and
frequency for disinfectant residual concentration, pH, turbidity, and coliform bacteria. The
presence of many drinking water contaminants affects drinking water aesthetics and can be
detected by consumers. In some cases, the consumer's sense of smell rivals the capability of
highly expensive analytical instruments by detecting some chemicals at parts per trillion levels.
From a health surveillance standpoint, drinking water consumers are the untapped surveillance
resource. They can act as "real-time" water quality and safety sensors that provide feedback.
These water quality monitors are located at every point in the distribution system at all times.
Unfortunately, consumer complaints were not being effectively handled or resolved at most
Army installations. The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine
(USACHPPM) recently provided additional guidance to Army staff outlining a low cost,
systematic procedure to improve drinking water surveillance through an effective consumer
complaint response and tracking system. The USACHPPM Technical Guide 284, Drinking
Water Consumer Complaints: Indicators from Distribution System Sentinels, May 2003, can be
obtained from the CHPPM web page http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 160 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 1 |
| Published : | 06/17/2004 |
