Full Description

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) has been actively involved in thedevelopment of a Contamination Warning System (CWS) for its river water intake and finishedwater distribution system for the past several years. PWSA's CWS gathers information from avariety of sources including continuous online analytical monitors, routine sample collection andlaboratory analysis, customer complaints, public health information from a syndromicsurveillance system, security information from local law enforcement, and intelligence fromnational sources such as the Water ISAC and the FBI's INFRAGARD. The PWSA CWS alsoincludes a robust consequence management program for response to contamination alertstriggered by the various water quality, public health, and security monitors. This responseincludes the use of a number of rapid analytical tests that can be performed in the field or quicklyin the laboratory, standard analyses in PWSA's state certified laboratory, immediate access to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's)WCIT (Water Contaminant Information Tool), and use of USEPA's hydraulic securitymodels, IC Water and PipelineNet.A major effort in PWSA's development of a comprehensive CWS continues to be extensiveonsite evaluation of commercially available technology for online monitoring and rapid fieldtesting. This paper describes an ongoing challenge study involving the injection of a number of"contaminants" into the plumbing system of PWSA's pilot distribution system sentinel station,and an evaluation of the responses of a variety of online monitors. Includes 4 references, tables, figures.

Product Details

Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 04/01/2008 Number of Pages: 22File Size: 1 file , 1.8 MB