Transcript Enhancing Water Security: The Potential of Advanced

Second Workshop on
Advanced Technologies in Real-Time
Monitoring and Modeling for Drinking Water
Safety and Security
Rutgers University-Newark
CIMIC
Dr. Nabil Adam
Director and Professor
Newark, NJ
December 11-12, 2002
Events of 9/11 Led to National Concern
Over Critical Infrastructure
 EPA created a Water Protection Task Force in October,
2001 to improve the security of the nation's drinking water
and wastewater infrastructure
 WPTF identified water distribution system vulnerability as
a security threat of major concern
 In June 2002, Pres. Bush established Bio-terrorism Act
requiring vulnerability assessments and threat response
plans from water utilities
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EPA’s Office of Research and
Development
 In spring of 2002 ORD Prepared Homeland Security
Research Plan
 Also identified distribution systems as a point of major
vulnerability
 Heavy emphasis on monitoring and sensor development
 Both ORD and WPTF identified the need for advanced
technologies and modeling to address water distribution
system vulnerabilities
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Nature of Threats – Community Water Supplies
(CWS)
• There are ~60,000 CWS in the US serving over 226 million people
• Over 63% of these systems supply water to less then 2.4% of the
population
• About 5.4% supply water to 78.5% of the population
• In addition there are 140,000 non-community water systems that
serve schools, recreational areas, trailer parks, etc.
• CWS are designed to deliver water under pressure -- generally
supply most of the water for fire fighting purposes
• Loss of water or a substantial loss of pressure could disable fire
fighting capability -interrupt service and disrupt public
confidence
• This loss might result from sabotaging pumps that maintain flow
and pressure, or disabling electric power sources could cause long
term disruption
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Vulnerability of Water Systems
• Water systems are spatially diverse and therefore, have an
inherent potential to be vulnerable to a variety of threats
– Physical, chemical, and biological
• There are several areas of vulnerability including
– the raw water source (surface or groundwater);
– raw water channels and pipelines;
– raw water reservoirs;
– treatment facilities;
– connections to the distribution system;
– pump stations and valves;
– finished water tanks and reservoirs.
• Each of these system elements presents unique challenges
to the water utility in safeguarding the water supply.
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Physical Disruption
• The ability of a water supply system to provide water to
customers can be compromised by destroying/disrupting
key physical elements of the system, e.g.,
– raw water facilities (dams, reservoirs, pipes, channels)
– treatment facilities
– distribution system elements (transmission lines& pump stations)
• Physical disruption may result in
– significant economic cost, inconvenience and loss of confidence by
customers, but have a limited direct threat to human health
– Exceptions, include, e.g., explosive release of chlorine gas at a
treatment plant
• Water utilities should examine their physical assets,
determine areas of vulnerability, and increase security
accordingly
• Redundant system components would provide backup
capability in case of accidental or purposeful damage to
facilities
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Contamination (1)
• The most serious potential terrorist threat to water
systems.
• Chemical or biological agents could spread throughout a
distribution system and result in sickness or death
• For some agents, the presence of the contaminant might
not be known until it is too late
• Even without serious health impacts, just the knowledge
that a group had breached a water system could seriously
undermine customers’ confidence in the system
• Accidental contamination of water systems has resulted in
many fatalities, e.g.,
– Cholera contamination in Peru, Cryptosporidium
contamination in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (U.S.), and
Salmonella contamination in Gideon, Missouri (U.S.)
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Contamination (2)
• CDC has defined three categories of potentially threatening
organisms
– Category A Agents/Water Threat, e.g., smallpox, anthrax
– Category B Agents/Water Threat, e.g., brucellosis
– Category C Agents/Water Threat, e.g., yellow fever,
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis
• The U.S. Army has conducted extensive testing and research on
potential biological agents.
– Though much is known about these agents, there is still
research needed to fully characterize the impacts, stability and
tolerance to chlorine of many of these agents
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The Rutgers Initiative - Objective
 Address the problem of drinking water resources and
distribution network security in a fundamental manner
and of a long-term nature:
 Need to ensure the safety and security of drinking
water at the source and in distribution networks
within our region and within our nation for future
generations
 This effort would be consistent with the national goal of
critical infrastructure protection
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Road Map (1)
1) Convene (Rutgers CIMIC and EPA Region II) workshops of
relevant organizations
2) Establish a Regional Drinking Water Safety and Security
Consortium
3) Leverage existing systems and advanced technologies as
elements of an end-to-end pilot systems
4) Design and develop an operational prototype system
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Road Map (2)
5) Evaluate the technologies in an end-to-end prototype
system (time span: approximately 3years)
6) Work with utilities to oversee and evaluate the
implementation of an operational system
7) Develop the next generation prototype system by early
acquisition and testing of new technologies and
modeling systems
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Rutgers and EPA Held Workshop in
June 2002
 Workshop held on June 27th-28th, 2002 – Hilton
Gateway Hotel, Newark, NJ
 Attendees: about 115 representatives from: 20
industries, 16 water utilities, 13 government
agencies, 14 academic institutions
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The 1st Workshop, June 27-28
Objective
 Provide a forum for scientists, water utility professionals,
and leaders in the area of real time sensor and modeling
technologies to share their expertise and ideas on how
these evolving technologies may be used to monitor
drinking water resources and distribution networks in order
to protect public health
 A follow-up workshop to take place in December 11-12 ,
2002
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Preliminary Workshop Findings (1)
 Surface Source Water
 Very large dilution factors are typical
 Some biotoxins may be potent enough to cause
negative health effects even at very low
concentration
 Natural treatment processes can remove or
neutralize most contaminants
 Contamination near the intake will minimize dilution
and natural treatment
 Off-stream storage is vulnerable to attack
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Preliminary Workshop Findings (2)
 Distribution System Vulnerabilities
 More vulnerable than source waters
 Large, complex, and accessible: Commercial &
residential service connections; fire hydrants; finished
water storage
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Preliminary Workshop Findings (3)
Difficult to contaminate an entire city via the distribution
system, but fairly easy to impact small sections or
individual buildings
Impossible to eliminate all access, but the key is to
Harden system components,
Monitor, evaluate, respond and contain the threats in
real-time fashion
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The Regional Drinking Water Safety Security
Consortium (RDWSSC)
Goal
 Provide a forum for state and local government
agencies representatives, highly talented scientists,
water utility professionals, and leaders in the area of
real time sensor and modeling technologies
 Provide a test bed for the rapid prototyping of
advanced and still evolving technologies to
monitor drinking water resources and distribution
networks in order to better protect the public
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RDWSSC - Membership
A MoU among the following members
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
State of New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection
U. S. Geological Survey
American Water Works Service Company, Inc.
North Jersey District Water Supply Commission
Passaic Valley Water Commission
Rutgers CIMIC
The goal of the MOU is to implement the drinking water
security recommendations of the 1st workshop
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The Rutgers Laboratory for Water
Security (LWS)
 An independent research lab within the guidelines
established by Rutgers University
 Provides research forum and serve as research
support to the Consortium
 Attracts support from federal, state, non-profit
funding agencies such as AWWARF, NSF, DARPA,
EPA, etc.
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RDWSSC - Immediate Objective
 Development and implementation of an Early Warning
System (EWS) that
Is real-time
Integrates sensors, monitoring and modeling into an
end-to-end system
Is deployed in real-world environment
Utilizes in the source waters (reservoirs and streams)
and the distribution network by municipal water
systems
 Document the Consortium’s experience into a
“Guide for Developing and implementing an EWS”
to share with others across the country
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Approach
 Three Phases
 Phase I
 Develop Prototype System and serve as test bed for
integration of monitoring and modeling systems
 Phase II
 Investigate technologies close to commercial
application
 Phase III
 Evaluate emerging technologies
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The Consortium Unique Contributions
• A collaboration among federal and state agencies together
with water utilities and academic institutions
• The Consortium will provide several unique test sites for
evaluating existing and emerging sensors and monitors
and modeling technology
– Sites in selected portions of the distribution systems in
the PVWC and AWWSC water utilities and in the
reservoirs and source waters managed by the NJDWSC
• This activities supports and complements the EPA in house
testing program for water quality sensors and monitors.
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Planned Research Studies by The
Consortium (1)
• Conduct research studies utilizing the field testing sites
to
– compare the specifications of the monitors as
provided by the vendors against actual field scale
performance
• Studies on data handling and validation including
– User requirements,
– Data quality objectives
– Real-time reporting and decision support
– Compliance reporting
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Planned Research Studies by The
Consortium (2)
• Determination of where in the distribution system, online
monitoring would be most effective
• Development of real time decision support systems for the
monitoring network
• Research on:
– Predictive modeling
– Data mining
– SCADA systems
– Optimal location of monitoring stations
– Integration of water quality modeling with monitoring
information to create an EWS
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2nd Workshop, Dec. 11/12
Objective
• Provide a forum for scientists, water utility professionals,
and leaders in the area of real time sensor and modeling
technologies to share their expertise and ideas on how to
– Further refine the needs for research and the specific
research issues as related to Early Warning Systems for
security in drinking water
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RDWSSC – Long Term Objective
• Serve as a model for other regions in the Country
• Help incrementally establish similar regional consortium
around the country
• Establish a national federation made up of regional
consortiums, that addresses the safety and security of our
drinking water in the entire nation
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Summary and Next Steps
 WPTF was established as a result of 9/11
 Distribution Systems have been identified as the
most vulnerable part of a water utility
 Rutgers University held workshop from June 27-28
 Results from workshop emphasized the potential for
advanced sensing and monitoring and modeling for
protection of distribution systems
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Summary and Conclusions
 Established consortium
 Rutgers will establish a water security research institute
 Three Phased Program
 Establish test bed in a water utility based on public
sector model
 Examine sensors and monitors close to
commercialization
 Conduct studies on new and emerging technology
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