U.S.: Threat to Water Supplies? (NY Times article)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

Headline: Added Security for Dams, Reservoirs and Aqueducts

Source: New York Times, 26 September 2001

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/national/26WATE.html

Cities and states are reassessing the safety of their drinking water, probing for weaknesses and shoring up defenses in what experts consider the unlikely event of a terrorist attack on water supplies.

Helicopters, patrol boats and armed guards sweep across the watershed feeding New York City, enforcing a temporary ban on fishing, hunting and hiking. Massachusetts has sealed commuter roads that run atop dams or wind down to the water's edge. And Utah has enlisted the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to peer down at reservoirs from planes and satellites, hoping to spot any weak points before the crowds gather in Salt Lake City in February for the Winter Olympics.

Since Sept. 11, fears of biological or chemical attack on water systems have spread through e-mail messages that warn consumers to stock up on bottled water, fueling anxious conversations in offices and living rooms.

Yet experts say any threat to public water supplies remains largely remote. In fact, experts on germ warfare say, to cause widespread health problems by contaminating a public water supply verges on the impossible.

"The water threat is mostly science fiction," said Richard Spertzel, a microbiologist who formerly led the United Nations' biological-weapons inspection teams in Iraq. Poisoning the voluminous rivers and reservoirs nourishing cities would require truckloads of chemicals or biological agents that would be difficult to produce and relatively easy to spot, experts say.

Even if terrorists crashed a Boeing 767 laden with anthrax into a reservoir, the lethal agent might well be destroyed in any resulting fire, or fail to diffuse effectively.

Perhaps most important, most cities could simply close off a contaminated reservoir and draw water from another source. New York City, for example, has nearly 20 reservoirs to choose from.

Rather than tainting a city's water supply, experts say, terrorists would be more likely to try to interrupt it entirely, perhaps by destroying dams or aqueducts.

"That is the larger threat," said Diane Vande Hei, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, who helped coordinate Clinton administration efforts to safeguard water against terrorism.

But she and other experts concede that they are looking at everything differently now, "in light of what we thought could never happen.`

Though pipes and spigots might not be so effective as scattering toxins into the air, some researchers say they believe that the water industry may have underestimated the risk that biological and chemical agents could make their way into homes without being detected.

Many cities, with their thousands of miles of pipe, were never designed to prevent terrorists from patching into neighborhood lines and poisoning the water after it has been treated and tested for safety.

"If someone is going to attack us, that's where they would do it," said Dr. Dennis D. Juranek, associate director of the Division of Parasitic Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're highly vulnerable."

Such an attack, experts advise, could sicken small neighborhoods or large buildings, but would probably not result in the widespread loss of life that terrorists generally seek.

Still, the threat is real enough that security experts checked the White House for similar weaknesses years ago and found it to be vulnerable. Extensive changes were made there to safeguard against poisoning.

Now cities are doing what they can to protect their pipes, putting padlocks on access doors, setting up surveillance cameras and installing alarms to prevent tampering in their tunnels. They have also dispatched lobbyists to Washington to drum up money for security and, while they are at it, to get financing for fixing leaky pipes and other outdated infrastructure.

In addition, utility companies are pushing to be allowed to keep many details of their security plans a secret. At present, federal law requires utilities to publish reports on how they would tackle their worst emergencies. That information may be important for fire departments and the police, cities say, but could also be useful to anyone interested in causing trouble. "We don't need to advertise where the weakest links in the armor are," said Tom Curtis, deputy director of the American Water Works Association.

Some cities have greatly increased their testing efforts. In New York City, technicians stare through microscopes at any organisms they find, and pore through computer printouts of chemicals around the clock, making sure nothing out of the ordinary appears.

"This has always been in the back of our minds," said Thomas Tipa, operations director for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. "It's finally become a reality. We're on full alert."

But while cities regularly test for dozens of compounds in the water, they are still incapable of screening for many known chemical and biological agents, according to the disease control centers. Even if they had the technology to do so, the time and expense involved in testing for the many organisms that can survive in chlorine would be prohibitive.

As a result, utility companies are looking for cues overseas, from countries like Israel that have lived with the threat of such weapons for years. Emulating them, many cities hope to place robots in the pipes, armed with computer chips that light up when dangerous microorganisms pass by.



-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), September 26, 2001

Answers

I normally don't like to discuss this issue "in public," lest anyone get ideas, but since the New York Times and other sources are already discussing it at length, let me offer a few comments:

"...Poisoning the voluminous rivers and reservoirs nourishing cities would require truckloads of chemicals or biological agents that would be difficult to produce and relatively easy to spot, experts say..."

[Yes. As my colleagues in environmental protection say about industrial accidents, “Dilution is the Solution”. The volume of a reservoir is massive, making it very hard to pull off a meaningful attack *at the level of the reservoir*...in terms of actual illness, anyhow. Panic is something else. See below.]

"...Rather than tainting a city's water supply, experts say, terrorists would be more likely to try to interrupt it entirely, perhaps by destroying dams or aqueducts. "That is the larger threat,.."

[Absolutely. It wouldn't be that hard if someone knew where the water tunnels into NYC were... and it's public information if you care to look for it. 'Nuff said.]

"...Though pipes and spigots might not be so effective as scattering toxins into the air, some researchers say they believe that the water industry may have underestimated the risk that biological and chemical agents could make their way into homes without being detected..."

[Detection is not the real issue. Would there be meaningful concentrations of the bad stuff (i.e., volume of distribution) and would the agents survive routine water treatment? Perhaps anthrax would be a risk, from technical discussions I've read, but not as bad as you might think. Pretty much all the other bio or chem agents would not be a "good" choice...at the level of the reservoir. but see below.]

"...Many cities, with their thousands of miles of pipe, were never designed to prevent terrorists from patching into neighborhood lines and poisoning the water after it has been treated and tested for safety. "If someone is going to attack us, that's where they would do it," said Dr. Dennis D. Juranek, associate director of the Division of Parasitic Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're highly vulnerable." ...Such an attack, experts advise, could sicken small neighborhoods or large buildings, but would probably not result in the widespread loss of life that terrorists generally seek..."

[Yes. (Dennis is a very smart guy so I am glad I agree with him!) Of course, even here the volume of distribution and differential pressure would be problematic for the attacker. Lots of the agent would end up "wasted" at fire hydrants and so on. But the PANIC that would result... and the lack of trust in the infrastructure... coming on the heels of the air attacks... would be the devastating component. Once it was made clear to the public that SOME water was indeed poisoned, the terrorist doesn’t really need to deliver more... who will trust ANY water anywhere?]

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), September 26, 2001.


There are a few poisons that are deadly at such low concentrations that dilution may not be enough. Plutonium falls into this category.

Also, low concentrations of some poisons may evade prompt detection, and cause subtle but very widespread degradation of public health. This could cause enormous cumulative damage before detection. And, the terrorists responsible would be long gone.

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), September 27, 2001.


Robert, you are correct. Notice I carefully wrote "very hard" not "impossible."

The poisons that might have actual health impact at such very low concentrations are few, and many of them are quite exotic. Even the "common" plant poisons such as ricin (and the others that can be made "in a kitchen lab") would still have to be dumped in *huge* quantity *at the reservoir* to have any likely impact. We're not talking homeopathy here (or at least I'm not).

Of courwse, further down the distribution chain the dilution "problem" decreases, but it's still a huge barrier to the would-be terrorist.

I have seen a technical paper (that is not mine to re-distribute here), that discussed waterborne risk of many other toxins including tetrodotoxin and aflatoxins for example. But for some of these the impact would be very long-term (think cancer) and the actual threshold dose is frankly speculative only.

The fact remains that the volume of distribution of even a small reservoir is huge.

As far as radioactive compounds, again the dilution factor is huge and the impact is speculative. Some of these compounds including plutonium are quite toxic *chemically*, forget about the radiation. But the threshold dose for a short exposure is perhaps not as well established as we might think. Whether cancer would actually result 10 or 20 or 30 years later is a question.

Beyond this, deponent sayeth not further.

Since you bring it up, plutonium is an interesting one. From my files, here's a NY Times article (note the article date and the event date!):

*********************************************************

Metro Matters: Back When a Water Scare Was a Crisis

By Joyce Purnick, New York Times, 28 Sept 2000

So the great water scare is over. There was no bad stuff in bottled water, just a guy pulling a scam, and maybe some wayward Palmolive.

Yet for days, the city was all worked up about a few people getting purported stomachaches - people gullible enough to buy water that is no more than gussied-up tap water anyway. A sad development indeed. The latest example of the wimpification of New York. Time was we could conduct a proper water crisis. Could we ever. In 1985, New York City lived through a water crisis worthy of a movie. Talk of drama. “Spin City,” move over. But the public was so nonchalant and the story such a blip that probably few remember the bizarre happenings of that bizarre day in late July.

The story broke in City Hall. It was a hot and humid Friday, nice and slow - always welcome with a summer weekend coming up. About 3 o’clock, a press secretary announced that Mayor Edward I. Koch would hold a news conference at 4:30 on “a matter of scientific importance.” That’s all he would say, before beating a retreat behind the French doors separating the mayor’s suite from the rest of City Hall - closed for the first time anyone could remember.

Even 15 years ago, before the advent of the perpetual news cycle, that tease was enough to send reporters into a dither. The ever- loquacious, accessible Mr. Koch was hiding out and planning a news conference on an ambiguous subject? And not for 90 minutes?

Editors clamored. Rumors abounded. Frustration built. Tempers flared. Reporters being reporters, and mayoral aides being mayoral aides (in those premilitarized days at City Hall), the story leaked long before the official announcement, even before Mr. Koch called top editors at every newspaper, asking them to avoid sensationalism.

Here’s what was going on: They found plutonium in the water supply.

Tests showed that our drinking water contained too much plutonium - the stuff of nuclear power plants and bombs. The water was still judged safe to drink, though, even if it did betray a whiff of plutonium perfume. The full story came at the afternoon news conference in the Blue Room of City Hall, conducted not just by the mayor but by scientists from the federal Department of Energy, who had been huddling all day in the basement.

Seems that nearly four months earlier, an anonymous letter addressed to the mayor had arrived in the mail room of City Hall. The writer threatened to contaminate the water supply with plutonium trichloride unless the government dropped all charges against Bernard Goetz - charged with (and later acquitted of) attempted murder in the shooting of four teenagers on a subway train.

The letter was referred to the Police Department’s intelligence division, which notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Federal and city agences began coordinated tests. The mayor, top police officials and the regional director of the F.B.I. were not told about the letter until late June (nearly three months later), after a test of city water showed levels of plutonium-239 - used in nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons and research laboratories - nearly 200 times above the norm.

That amount was still well below the level considered dangerous. But still, it was plutonium. Security was tightened at the reservoirs, and tests continued. One conducted nearly a month later still showed an elevated level of radiation, and two subsequent tests showed only trace levels of plutonium.

Since the water was judged safe to drink, the authorities decided not to risk inducing panic by telling the public about those high radiation levels.

But then a reporter for The Patriot of Harrisburg, Pa., began asking questions, as did one at WCBS-TV. So the mayor and friends held their news conference to a packed crowd, and quite the performance it was, complete with scientific testimony and a convincing show of mayoral mastery over “femtocuries” (a millionth of a billionth of a curie, the standard measure of radioactivity).

Tests conducted later that summer showed only normal levels of plutonium in the city’s water. To this day, it is not known, at least not officially, what happened or who wrote the letter. Could be the threat was carried out—inadequately. Maybe it was a hoax (the threatening letter arrived on April Fools’ Day); could be the test vials were somehow contaminated.

Whatever the reality, the story was a one- or two-day wonder. Sales of Evian water spiked, but only briefly, and most New Yorkers kept drinking tap water. Now that was a proper New York crisis. New Yorkers did what New Yorkers do. Or did. They ignored it.

*************************************************************



-- Andre Weltman, M.D. (aweltman@state.pa.us), September 27, 2001.


Headline: Vigilance grows over water: Sept. 11 attacks prompt tighter security at state's reservoirs

Source: Boston Globe, 26 September 2001

URL: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/269/metro/Vigilance_grows_over_water +.shtml

CLINTON - Here at Wachusett Reservoir, where thick forests surround billions of gallons of water bound for Boston, officials are preparing for a horror that is no longer unimaginable.

Yesterday, State Police troopers turned people away from their daily nature walks along the Wachusett and manned stations at 11 other vulnerable parts of the system's water supply, fearful someone might try to poison the drinking water of much of Eastern Massachusetts.

While this reservoir holds so much water that it would be extraordinarily difficult to poison, it is not impossible: Several truckloads of the right toxin could conceivably kill thousands.

And it's not only reservoirs that officials must worry about. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's system is enormously complex, with potentially vulnerable dams and vast webs of smaller pipes and pumping stations to bring water to consumers - none of which were built with terrorist threats in mind.

''It's the stuff of urban legends and folklore that two drops [of some poison] are going to wreak havoc,'' said Fred Laskey, head of the MWRA. ''To contaminate a water supply is so difficult it would border on the impractical. But we can't ignore it. And we have two threats: the contamination and the physical threat'' to dams and pipes.

In response, Massachusetts officials have closed off vehicle access to large dams enclosing the Quabbin and Wachusett reservoirs, by far the largest water sources for the metropolitan area. Security officials fear a truck loaded with explosives could damage or even destroy them, causing devastating flooding and draining Boston's water supply. In addition, police have increased patrols along the 17 miles where Greater Boston's water flows in a single aqueduct. The Metropolitan District Commission's 160 water protection employees are more heavily patrolling all the MWRA's water supplies - many of which already are underground, locked, and alarmed.

Finally, water officials have set alarms to go off at a mere hint of potential contamination in the water. Last Saturday, officials stopped drawing water from the massive Quabbin Reservoir altogether when two low-flying planes were spotted overhead. The Quabbin is not expected to come back online for several days. The Wachusett Reservoir has plenty of water without the Quabbin - enough for several months.

All the preparations are at least partly a reaction to public fears. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, water officials have received dozens of phone calls, some frantic, worrying that a crop duster or determined hiker with the right chemical could turn faucets into poison dispensers. ''We know people are worried, and we are doing everything we can,'' said Laskey, acknowledging water's unique importance. ''Everyone drinks the water; it comes into your house and you use it. It's got a psychology.''

But the MWRA provides only a portion of Massachusetts water, and smaller above-ground reservoirs and even wells are more vulnerable to attacks. Yesterday, some local water superintendents said they were protecting their supplies with the help of police.

As water districts scramble to improve security, analysts say that, while some supplies are well protected, too many are wide open to terrorism, creating an uneven patchwork. ''It wouldn't make sense to build Fort Knox with one wall 3 feet thick and another wall out of aluminum siding,'' said Jeffrey Danneels, an engineer at Sandia National Laboratory, who is helping municipalities tighten security of water supplies. ''But unfortunately that is how a lot of security systems are built.''

Danneels, who has been visiting localities to assess their systems, urged officials to focus on developing technology, still a few years away, to test water from rainfall to faucet for a broad range of biological and chemical weapons in real time. He also wants to see improved security at treatment plants.

Yesterday, MWRA officials watched the state's water supply from a high-tech command center in the Cosgrove Disinfection facility at the Wachusett Reservoir. Security cameras scanned the grounds while a worker stared at a computer screen, watching the path of the water as it made its way to Boston.

The water normally travels from the Quabbin to the Wachusett, where it is treated with chlorine, then moves to Marlborough, where it is injected with fluoride. The final stop is at the Norumbega Reservoir in Weston, where another disinfectant is added before the millions of gallons go into pipes and travel on to nearly 2 million homes.

It is virtually impossible to check for every chemical that could possibly be dumped into the water, MWRA officials concede. So officials are more carefully watching for changes in the water's cloudiness and acidity that could signal a problem.

Still, while the public's focus has been on exotic poisons, common bacteria remain the biggest threat. The most infamous case of US water contamination - in Milwaukee in 1993 -- came from a microbe called cryptosporidium, which is found in the feces of humans and animals. Cryptosporidium in runoff from a cattle lot sickened 400,000 people and killed more than 100 in Milwaukee.

In one key way, the MWRA is better prepared than many other water districts. Over the last three years, the agency has built three gigantic underwater storage tanks that are difficult for workers, let alone terrorists, to access. Two more are being built, including a 115 million gallon container that will be the world's largest. Once these facilities are completed, virtually all of the MWRA's water will remain under lock and key once it has been treated.

''We're doing everything we possibly can,'' said Laskey.



-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), September 28, 2001.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ