Flood of Money Targets Drinking Water Security

When officials discovered last month that intruders had breached the security at one of this town’s two drinking water reservoirs, they assessed the evidence, weighed their options and did what any other water utility would have done after Sept. 11.

They drained the tank.

Five million gallons of what turned out to be perfectly good water gushed out of the underground reservoir, flowed through half a mile of storm sewer pipes and onto the Elks Club parking lot before spilling across the Riverside Golf Course and into the placid Rock River.

Aside from that, the decision to flush roughly half a day’s water supply down river caused barely a ripple in this Middle American town of 60,000. There was no panic. There was no run on bottled water.

And that was precisely the point.

“People have to have confidence in their drinking water,” said Janesville City Manager Steven Sheiffer.

Never mind that life-threatening contamination of an American drinking-water system by terrorists armed with deadly bacteria is all but impossible.

“It would basically require parking a supertanker full of immense quantities of poison in the middle of a supply reservoir,” said Peter S. Beering, terrorism preparedness coordinator for the city of Indianapolis and deputy general counsel for the Indianapolis Water Co.

Despite that, utilities are spending vast sums--from tens of thousands to millions of dollars per city--to better secure what all involved know to be the safest of the country’s critical infrastructures.

Around the country, this homeland security means, among other things, federally mandated vulnerability assessments, round-the-clock security guards, covers on formerly open reservoirs, enhanced computer security, more frequent and sensitive tests for contaminants and, in some places, higher water rates to help pay for it all.

Officials are also concerned with the possibility of a physical or cyber-attack that would disrupt the supply of water to homes and businesses.

“Everyone is in agreement that the loss of public confidence has to be avoided at all costs,” said Rick Hahn, a former FBI agent whose consulting company devised a security plan for Los Angeles’ far-flung water system.

Beering predicted that eventually “we’ll get to the point where people are no longer interested in dumping money on things you never see.”

But for now, cities and ratepayers appear willing to pay whatever it takes to buy peace of mind. It has to do “with the city being able to say, ‘This water is safe,’ ” said Daniel L. Lynch, director of Janesville’s water and wastewater utilities.

Reassuring the Janesville public has meant, among other things, bolting a 2,100-pound concrete block to the top of the already virtually unliftable hatch cover. Lynch said: “There’s no way in the world anybody can get into that thing, short of a tank.”

Yet Lynch, who believes the recent security breach was nothing more than a few kids on a dare, will soon oversee the erection of a fence around the hatch. Earlier this year, the entire reservoir property was enclosed by a 7-foot-high, barbed-wire-topped fence.

Water systems were at the top of the federal government’s heightened security list even before the terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. A month afterward, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman tried to reassure a rattled public:

“People are worried that a small amount of some chemical or biological agent--a few drops, for instance--could result in significant threats to the health of large numbers of people,” she said. “I want to assure people, that just can’t happen.”

Despite evidence of terrorist interest--President Bush reported in his State of the Union address that American troops had recovered diagrams of public water systems from Al Qaeda hide-outs in Afghanistan--experts agree that U.S. water systems are, for the most part, safe from saboteurs.

Water utilities “are in the business of purifying water,” said Beering, the terrorism expert and water company official. They run hundreds of tests a day on both raw and treated water.

Nearly any poison dumped into a water system would be neutralized in the water treatment process, agreed Adam Dolnik, a research associate for the Monterey Institute’s Terrorism Project.

As a result, he said, terrorists aiming to kill or sicken large numbers of people would have to pump substantial quantities of contaminants into a water supply after it had been treated. That too is technologically difficult.

“You can’t watch every faucet,” but increased testing by water utilities at a greater number of sites since Sept. 11 means detection of foreign substances is more likely than ever, said Hahn, the security consultant.

What most worries Hahn is the potential for an attack on a utility’s computer network. The resulting disruption of water service would have “a tremendous economic impact, as well as a psychological impact,” Hahn said.

It was concern about computer-related problems that led President Bill Clinton four years ago to establish the framework for public-private security coordination. Those Y2K-related cyber-calamities did not materialize, but after Sept. 11, the network that was needed to address physical threats to critical infrastructures was already in place.

The EPA’s water protection task force had teamed with the Assn. of Metropolitan Water Agencies, a trade group, and representatives of several water utilities. Since Sept. 11, they have focused on identifying security problems and correcting them.

The anti-bioterrorism bill passed by Congress in May requires all 54,000 water systems serving more than 3,300 people to conduct vulnerability assessments and develop emergency response plans. The bill dedicated more than $100 million in federal funds to increased water system security, much of it in grants to large drinking water utilities.

But most water systems had not waited for a federal mandate.

In Janesville, 40 miles south of Madison, the pre-Sept. 11 “concept of security was locking the doors behind us,” Lynch said. But almost immediately after the attacks, officials contracted with consultants for a vulnerability assessment.

Within a couple of months, efforts to fortify the system’s central office, two reservoirs, six wells and 328 miles of water mains had begun.

Without federal money, Janesville has already spent $75,000 on water system security and will soon spend $40,000 more. Still on paper is $150,000 worth of safety measures.

Like other utility directors, Lynch is focusing on two types of security enhancement.

The first includes physical barriers--fences, locks, bars, motion detectors, cameras, reservoir covers, hypersensitive testing equipment and anti-hacking computer programs--designed to deter, delay and detect potential intruders.

The second consists of stockpiling duplicates of everything--pumps, pipes, intake valves, testing equipment and the like--that could be needed if an attack on the physical plant disrupted water service.

Other places are equally ambitious:

* In Los Angeles, where Department of Water & Power official Hal Lindsey says there has been “absolutely no credible threat” to the water system since Sept. 11, Mayor James K. Hahn unveiled a five-year, $132-million security plan.

The department has already increased the frequency of its water quality tests and the range of contaminants it tests for, Lindsey said. In addition, it conducts daily aerial patrols of its facilities and has 24-hour guard service at each.

Construction of a central monitoring station and installation of new surveillance equipment and other security measures will begin by year’s end, said Lindsey, the executive director of corporate health and safety.

* In central Florida, where drinking water comes from hundreds of feet below ground, at least three government agencies have spent more than $1 million each on water system security. One county has plans to spend $1 million.

* North of San Diego, runners, bikers and rollerbladers can no longer cross Miramar Dam. Concerned that terrorists might use the popular bike path to attack the dam or pollute the reservoir, the state ordered it closed.

* In Seattle, where officials spent $4 million on added water security immediately after Sept. 11, the City Council will soon vote on a $235-million, nine-year plan to bury seven drinking water reservoirs and acquire land for parks.

* Officials in Portland are considering a $65-million plan to replace three reservoirs with underground concrete storage tanks, temporarily cover two other reservoirs and beef up the water system’s security force.

* And in Wilmington, Del., officials assessed the various threats to the city and decided the water system was not a priority. But several new security systems are already in place, and a $1-million security plan is on the books.

In Janesville, where Suburbans and mid-sized trucks are assembled at an aging General Motors plant, life is as simple and orderly as the 4 p.m. shift change. The crime rate is almost nonexistent, and city officials take the public trust very seriously.

After the reservoir was drained and inspected last month, the tank was refilled and life went back to normal, as normal as it gets after Sept. 11.

Dan Lynch, staring at the “No trespassing, violators will be prosecuted” signs posted on the reservoir’s security fence, shook his head.

“This,” he said, “is Janesville, Wis.”