Through the assessment of vulnerabilities to drinking water systems, water security experts have
identified the distribution system as one of the most vulnerable components in a drinking water utility
with respect to contamination; thus, the distribution system is the primary focus of contamination warning
systems. To address the risk of drinking water contamination, the
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to develop and implement a
contamination warning system for drinking water (US Office of the President, 2004). This directive gave
rise to the USEPA's Water Security initiative (WSi), (formerly known as WaterSentinel).
In order to demonstrate the WSi contamination warning system design, the USEPA is partnering with drinking
water utilities to deploy pilots. The first of these pilots was launched in Cincinnati, in partnership with
the Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) and other local agencies. This pilot was launched in early
2006, and achieved operational status at the start of 2008. As part of the contamination warning system pilot, two early detection sensor (EDS) tools were deployed at GCWW. The
objective of this paper was to summarize the first year of experience with water quality event detection at
the Cincinnati contamination warning system pilot. This paper describes the water quality monitoring
system deployed at GCWW, discusses the performance of water quality EDS tools, and shares lessons
learned from alarm investigations. Includes 9 references, table, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 1.2 MB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 17 |
| Published : | 11/01/2008 |
