SECUREAU

Security and decontamination of drinking water distribution systems following a deliberate contamination

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Vulnerability of drinking water distribution systems to deliberate attacks, which would have major public health, economic and psychosocial consequences, is one of the main issues of concern to regulatory agencies, and water utilities. Such a network appears very vulnerable and easy to contaminate through reservoirs, back-flow… The main objective of this proposal is to limit the impact on the population of safe water privation because of contaminated networks, and to launch an appropriate response for rapidly restoring the use of the network after a deliberate contamination. Questions that will be addressed for successful coordinated response of water utilities and regulatory agencies to contamination include: •Detection of unexpected changes in water quality which could be in relation with a deliberate contamination event, •Adaptation of known analytical methods to rapidly detect specific CBRN contaminants in water and in biofilms. •Localization of the point sources of contamination and subsequently the contaminated area allowing delimitation of the corrective actions. •Decontamination procedures (efficient and realistic) of the distribution system. •Controlling the efficacy of the corrective actions by analysing the water bulk and especially the pipe walls and the deposits. •Cases studies will give the chance for the practitioners to apply on site in real conditions the selected sensors, methods, remediation technologies… It is a unique occasion to test an emergency procedure on a complicated, inaccessible, and relatively fragile system, to evaluate its feasibility at field scale, and to evaluate the difficulty to apply corrective treatments to the huge water bulk generated by the neutralisation/extraction of contaminants. The SecurEau project will therefore contribute to the European scientific excellence, to the European competitiveness and to the fight against terrorism, in accordance with the guidelines set up by the EC in the last 5 years.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Drinking water infrastructures are vulnerable to deliberate contamination, which can have far-reaching consequences for public health and the economy. A European project developed a comprehensive approach to rehabilitate a drinking water system after a deliberate contamination.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Public water infrastructure such as tanks and pipes are easy targets for terrorist attacks using chemical, biological or radioactive contaminants. This would not only cause direct harm to end-users, but could also create social disorder through the interruption of water supply to the public.

An EU-funded project called SecurEau developed an early warning system to minimise the public impact of such an attack. It has also created tools to rapidly locate the source of contamination and its spreading and ways to clean the water distribution system, including the inner walls of the pipes.

To develop the early warning system, researchers tested a wide range of new sensors to detect any significant changes in water quality, and advanced mathematical models to optimise the position of those sensors in the water network. They also looked at methods to identify the source of contamination.

Many cleaning and decontamination methods were then tested to find the most effective approach for reservoirs and pipe walls. Approaches to the accurate and safe handling of decontamination waste were also developed.

The SecurEau team used their results to generate a final model and decision tool (which can be appended to the obligated water safety plan) for dealing with contamination. These steps will not only protect against future contamination events, they will also provide improved monitoring and every-day management of water distribution infrastructure.