What About Terrorism and Drinking Water?

Following the tragedy of September 11 and the events that have been unfolding since then, I received several questions about possible terrorist attacks against water sources or the water treatment and distribution systems.  Specifically, what kind of threats might be possible, and what treatment methods would be effective against contaminants that might be added to the water.  I have listed the information I have found, and at the bottom of the page, will review  treatment methods and their possible effectiveness against some potential contaminants.  

A HUGE disclaimer here - I am not in any way, shape or form, an expert on bio- or chemical- terrorism.  I am not associated with the government, nor do I have any way of knowing what actual harmful agents might be introduced into a particular water source or the water distribution system of a city, or if specific purification methods would be able to remove those agents.  I have found some sources that may provide you with some useful information, but the list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive.  Hopefully, though, the information you find here will at least give you a start to understanding this topic.

Topics on This Page:
   In The News - everything I could find on the web about drinking water and terrorism 
   Institute for Homeland Security - JAMA reviews most likely candidates for a biological attack
   Potential Threats to Drinking Water 
   Activated Carbon - link to another page
   General Comments - about drinking water treatment methods
   Treatment Methods
   Final Thoughts

Before you review the treatment methods described below, you might want to look at a few of the sites I have found that address the issue of terrorism as it might apply to drinking water.  At the time of this writing (10/27/01), and the most recent update (1/1/04), I have been able to find very little official information on the web about this terrorism directed against drinking water (most of the emphasis is on terrorist attacks using air-born agents - or mail delivered agents).  If anyone visiting my site has additional information or is aware of other useful links about terrorism against drinking water, please let me know.

Bio-Terrorism - Chemical and Biological Warfare Hazards and YOUR Water Quality and Health -  This website is a Jump Station for Information on BioTerroism, Chemical Warfare, and Source Water Protection. We have provided links to some of the best Government and Non-Governmental Websites and Online Library and Bookstores to assist you in your search for information.

Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response (2003) Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua Lederberg, Editors Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century.  The book is not exclusively about bioterrorism, but there are references to the threat.

Center for Disease Control - Emergency Preparedness and Response website

Bioterrorism collections from JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) & Archives Journals.

EPA Actions To Safeguard The Nation's Drinking Water Supplies   updated Aug. 2004
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working with other government agencies and water suppliers to ensure that the Nation's drinking water continues to be safe, even from terrorist attack. EPA is providing local water utilities with the best scientific information as well as technical training on conducting vulnerability assessments and enhancing emergency response plans should an attack occur. To further protect the Nation's drinking water supplies, EPA has set up a special task force to enhance protection efforts already underway. The task force will consider how EPA can support efforts by utilities to accelerate local vulnerability assessments and mitigation actions. The goal is to ensure that water utilities are undertaking the steps to understand vulnerable points and to mitigate the threat from terrorist attacks as quickly as possible. The task force will work to speed up the availability of new advanced materials being prepared by EPA and other federal agencies and private sector partners, that will be used in preparedness efforts.........  
This webpage describes the U.S. EPA's Counter-Terrorism efforts and shares appropriate information and resources

Small Water System Security - The National Environmental Services Center (NESC) has assembled information about protecting small drinking water systems against potential threats. Our intent is to educate governing boards and system personnel, help them prepare emergency plans, and find sources of more information.

Water Quality Association (WQA) Press Release on Bioterrorism (You will need to scroll down to the date)
WQA issued a press release on October 16, 2001 concerning possible bioterrorist threats to our
nation's water supply and POU/POE products' capabilities in meeting those threats. It is important to note that since the release was issued the size of anthrax spores is being re-evaluated; they may actually be smaller than declared by this release....   WQA home page

U.S. water supply vulnerable - MSNBC News, Oct. 24, 2003 - The vulnerability of the nation’s water supply isn’t in the headlines, it’s in the details of the country’s 54,065 public and private water systems. For years, experts have warned about the need to upgrade, repair and thoroughly assess the risk of terrorists targeting the nation’s water supply and distribution channels. Yet most of those warnings have been ignored, under-funded or relegated to the back burner as policy-makers addressed “more important” projects.

Book Review: Understanding water and terrorism 
A panoramic view of the threat of terrorist attacks against the US water supply. (from WaterTech.ONLINE)

POU and the war on terror (Aug 2004)
According to Water Quality Association (WQA) Technical Director Joe Harrison, reverse osmosis (RO) and distillation have been proven to take out the largest variety of contaminants or terrorist agents most completely.  Activated carbon blocks are also effective at preventing most contaminants from entering a drinking water system...  These POU technologies are sound for a multitude of terrorism agents, both biological and chemical in nature...   “RO and activated carbon are the highest tech treatment methods we have, so the Army is using them,” Harrison explained. (from WaterTech.ONLINE)

POU and terrorism: An interview with Peter Beering
Peter Beering is the terrorism preparedness coordinator in Indianapolis, IN, and is one of the experts who trains officials in terrorism preparation and response in cities across the country for the US Department of Defense. (from WaterTech.ONLINE)

One on One with J. Allen Rose
J. Allen Rose is vice president of Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp. and a nationally recognized expert in the areas of security. (from WaterTech.ONLINE)

POU industry should educate consumers about bioterrorism
Security has increased at water treatment plants and water storage facilities since the tragic events of 11 September, but manufacturers and dealers of POU/POE water treatment equipment should be prepared for the possibility of a biological or chemical threat. (from WaterTech.ONLINE)

Companies join to protect water from bio-terrorism 
Some Utah-based water technology companies have joined forces to help prevent bio-terrorism, according to a report by KSL-TV. (from WaterTech.ONLINE)

Consumer Information, Web Links for Information on Bioterrorism   Additional Links
NSF International, a public health and safety company, said its consumer affairs office has been deluged with questions about bioterrorism, so it has established a special Web site that can be used to garner information.  Possible Food Tampering or Terrorism is also a concern.

Terrorism targeted by world's tap water suppliers
6/19/2001  Water utilities band with law enforcement to protect public health resources
Counterterrorism efforts between the federal government and the drinking water community have been under way since a presidential directive in 1998 established the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC). Since then, through the Critical Infrastructure Protection Advisory Group (CIPAG), a group of representatives from several water utilities around the country focused on better protecting America's drinking water infrastructure from terrorist attack.

NPR, Morning Edition, October 18, 2001 - List of the program's stories for the day.
Dam Security - Listen to the report with Real Audio
NPR's Howard Berkes reports that managers at America's dams and reservoirs are beefing up security to prepare for possible biological and chemical attacks. Sixty-one million people depend on dams and reservoirs for their water -- making the structures a tempting target. (5:06 min.)

Attack on Water Systems Seen As Improbable, But Not Impossible,    October 19, 2001
The potential for terror attacks that target water and wastewater systems was a major topic of discussion during WEFTEC, the Water Environment Federation's annual conference held this week in Atlanta. Security was the focus for speakers during the conference's opening session and at two technical sessions that attracted standing room only audiences. Most speakers, and those commenting from the audience during the question-and-answer sessions, agreed that the current threat to water infrastructure was minimal but that additional precautions were justified in the wake of September 11 and the more recent anthrax incidents.  Water Environment Federation - Resources for Security & Preparedness

DrinkingH2O.com - On Line Information System for the Drinking Water Community
DrinkingH2O.com delivers the latest news and resources for drinking water professionals, as well as information for the public about water treatment and conservation.

A Chemical and Biological Warfare Threat: USAF Water Systems At Risk 
Water and the systems that supply it are national critical infrastructures. Attack to deny or disrupt these systems could have catastrophic effects on the U.S. economy and military power. Water is particularly vulnerable to chemical or biological attack. Not limited to the “traditional” chemical weapons, an adversary has a plethora of cheap, ubiquitous and deadly chemicals on the worldwide market. Using an Internet search and $10,000, the adversary could build a biological fermentation capability, producing trillions of deadly bacteria that don't require missiles or bombs for delivery. 

ILSI Risk Science Institute : Early Warning Monitoring to Detect Hazardous Events in Water Supplies
The ILSI Risk Science Institute (RSI) convened a two-day specialty workshop in May 1999 that focused on three specific areas: threats to drinking water supplies from low probability/high public health impact events; early warning monitoring approaches; and interpretation, risk management, and public communication issues. 
The document is a PDF file which requires Adobe Acrobat. To obtain a free copy of Adobe Acrobat click here.

Terrorism Research Center
[This site contains coverage of terrorism in general and does not focus on attacks to drinking water systems - RJ]
The terrorist threat to America is changing. During the 1970s and 80s, US policymakers prepared for
bombings and hijackings overseas. Today, policymakers are preparing to defend against attacks
against population and critical infrastructure targets in the US homeland. The worst of these threats
confronting policymakers is the terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), especially
chemical or biological weapons.

The Who, What, Why, and How of Counter Terrorism Issues 
Gay Porter Denileon, Journal of the American Water Works, May 2001
The potential for terrorism against water utilities is not new, but with a growing number of terrorist groups that are increasingly extreme, the concern regarding an intentional attack on US infrastructure—including water systems—has heightened considerably since the end of the Cold War. 

A list of websites specifically dealing with bioterrorism can be found at Microbes.info - Bioterrorism

Emergency Family Preparedness Video
BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Recent events have raised people's concern about how to
protect themselves and their families during an emergency. Arthur Levy says that being prepared for
possible disasters, natural or man-made, can help lower stress and calm fears.  Levy has produced of a series of award-winning health and safety videos which show specific steps to take in order to be better prepared to cope with an emergency.  [not specifically about terrorist induced emergencies, just general preparedness, according to the report - RJ]

Disclaimer - I will go out on a limb here and provide some general information about water treatment methods that might be useful in some instances of terrorist contamination of drinking water.  Obviously, these generalizations may or may not be accurate in any specific situation so the information provided is to provide education about the potential risks and treatments - NOT to provide specific advice on what specific water treatment you should purchase.  If anyone reading this article has additional information about potential threats or counter measures that can be taken by the average home owner, please let me know - if it is credible, I will add add it to my site.

Potential Threats to Drinking Water:
Most of the threats to drinking water I have read about might consist of:
A) a deliberate introduction of biological contaminants like viruses, cysts, E. coli, anthrax spores, etc.  (again, I do not know what biological contaminant(s) would be the most likely threat, some of the articles above touch on the subject, however).  The size of the contaminant is important, because the pore size of a filter must be smaller than the size of the contaminant in order to effectively reduce levels.  Bacteria are about 1 micron in size (some smaller, some larger).  Many viruses are about 100 - 200 times smaller than bacteria (I just read that if a bacteria were the size of a car, a virus would be the size of a cell phone).  Cyrptosporidia and giardia cysts are several times larger than most bacteria.  My page, Relative size of some water contaminants, will give you a visual picture of how the size of some of these organisms compare with the pore size of different types of filters.  Biological contaminants dumped into the water source of a city would be highly diluted by the time they reached a treatment plant.  Also, water treatment methods now in place (including  floculation, filtration, and disinfection), would effectively remove or kill most types of infectious agents before they entered the distribution system.
B) a deliberate introduction of some type of hazardous chemical compound.  I have not read much about specific chemicals that are thought to be possible threats to drinking water, but the consensus seems to be that they would be synthetic organic compounds or possible radioactive compounds rather than non-radioactive inorganic chemicals.  The concentration of many organic chemicals is effectively reduced by Activated Carbon filters, however.  Reverse Osmosis and Distillation are better at reducing inorganic contaminants, but with proper design are effective at significantly reducing all contaminants.  Again, not knowing what specific chemicals might be used, it is impossible to know how effective an activated carbon filter would be against these potential threats.
C) Physical attacks against water companies, waste treatment facilities (in an effort to contaminate water), or reservoir dams (in an effort to disrupt water supplies and cause damage from flooding).

POU and the war on terror - According to Water Quality Association (WQA) Technical Director Joe Harrison, reverse osmosis (RO) and distillation have been proven to take out the largest variety of contaminants or terrorist agents most completely.  Activated carbon blocks are also effective at preventing most contaminants from entering a drinking water system.  Additionally, there are systems that combine two or more of those technologies into one system. Many RO systems will have a carbon block, for example.  These POU technologies are sound for a multitude of terrorism agents, both biological and chemical in nature — the primary reason POU equipment is playing such a significant role in securing the safety of water supplies for American troops worldwide.  “RO and activated carbon are the highest tech treatment methods we have, so the Army is using them,” Harrison explained. 

Some General Comments:
You will have to carefully examine the claims of contaminant reduction made by the manufacturer of any water purification device you are interested in purchasing  to make certain that it actually removes the contaminants you would like to have removed from your drinking water.  One of the best ways to make certain a purification device is effective is to make certain that it is certified by an independent, third party organization (the device should display the NSF International Certification Mark, or the WQA Gold Seal).  I have discussed third party certification in some depth on my Water Treatment page.  To the best of my knowledge, however, there is no independent certification for claims of bacterial or viral removal by any filtration system.  A pore size of 0.5 micron from a reputable company (backed up by laboratory tests) should remove most harmful bacteria that might be in the water, including E. coli and anthrax.  A pore size of 0.1 - 0.2 micron should remove nearly all bacterial types.  Try to obtain laboratory test results that specify the percent removal of the contaminants.  Two filters could accurately state that lead, for instance, was reduced by their filter, but one might remove 60% of the lead and the other 98%.

Although, in an emergency a good filter with an appropriately small pore size will remove biological contaminants larger than its pore size, most reputable companies do NOT recommend that their products be used on water that is chronically biologically unsafe - in other words, a completely untreated water source that has continually high E. coli counts, for example.  A good activated carbon block filter with a submicron pore size and reverse osmosis treatments would be better than no treatment.  However, any small defects in the carbon block or sub-micron filter some organisms to escape filtration.  If at all possible water that may be contaminated with biological organisms should be disinfected by chemicals (chlorine, iodine, etc.) or by heat before filtration.

Review of Treatment Methods:
If you are seriously concerned about the safety of your drinking water and decide to depend on one or more of the water treatment methods discussed above, the only methods that would provide some measure of protection, by themselves, against more than a few potential contaminants would be:

Solid Block Activated Carbon Filters - Most economical and requires no electricity or high water pressure, but not effective against as wide a range of contaminants as the other methods.

Reverse Osmosis - Requires pressurized water but normally not electricity to function properly.  Removes most harmful contaminants including, under ideal condition, biological contaminants.  Can be combined with a good SBAC filter to come very close to producing pure water.   

Distillation  - Requires a source of electricity (unless you purchase a solar distillation system).  A good distillation system with an effective VOC trap will produce pure water with virtually all of the contaminants removed.  

Bottled Water - If quality water is purchased, or if you store water properly, you can be assured of safe water in the case of an emergency for as long as your stored water lasts.  The other three methods have the potential for providing as much water as needed for an extended period of time.

Details about how other treatment technologies work can be found on my Water Treatment page.
1) Whole house filters (both fiber and AC) usually have a fairly large pore size (typically larger than 10 - 15 microns) and will NOT effectively trap harmful biological contaminants.  Fiber filters will not remove any organic contaminants, and the water typically moves through a whole house granular activated carbon (GAC) filter too fast to have all of the organic chemicals removed.  

2) The popular GAC pitcher filters would be completely useless in removing most kinds of seriously harmful contaminants.  The pore size is too large to trap harmful particulates, like the biological contaminants discussed above, and there is too little activated carbon to remove all organic contaminants that might be in the water.  In addition, channeling (described below) would reduce the effectiveness of the filters even further.

3) Larger GAC filters, used in counter-top and under-counter filtration systems, also have extremely large pores that will not remove small, harmful particulates.  Although activated carbon is good at removing a wide spectrum of organic chemicals, all GAC filters can suffer from a phenomenon called channeling where the water pressure forces channels to open up in the loose carbon granules.  Some of the water, following the route of least resistance, will flow through the channel and not come into contact with the carbon filtration medium.  Consequently, some of the water flowing through a GAC filter may not have been filtered at all, and there is no way of knowing if the water still contains some harmful contaminants.

Emergency Disinfection by Adding Liquid Bleach:
If boiling is not possible and the water contains bacteria or viruses, the water can be made safe for drinking by treating with liquid household chlorine bleach (such as Clorox, Purex, etc.).  Avoid using scented and “color-safe” bleaches.  Household bleach has a strength of about 5% chlorine (most labels show it as 5.25%).  
Place the water (filtered if necessary) in a clean container, add the amount of bleach according to Table 1 or 2 on the Washington State Department of Health site.   It is important to mix thoroughly and allow to stand for at least 30 minutes before using the water.  If the water is cloudy, or very cold, increase the standing time to 60 minutes. For treating small amounts of water, you may find it easier to use a 1% bleach solution.  See instructions on the same page on how to make a 1% solution.
You can also use water purifying tablets or chemicals designed for use when camping or backpacking.  Always follow the directions on the package.
Note:  Chlorine and other common disinfectant chemicals will not kill cysts of the parasite Cryptosporidium (“Crypto”), which may be present in water supplies affected by untreated surface water.  Cryptosporidium is an organism that can cause severe illness and even death in persons who have been weakened because of health problems.  Boiling is the best water treatment in these situations in the absence of a good SBAC filter, RO unit, or distillation system.  
Boiling and adding liquid bleach to disinfect water work only in situations where the water is unsafe because of the presence of biological contaminants.  If you suspect the water is unsafe because of chemicals oils, poisonous substances, sewage, etc., do not use the water for drinking, or use other purification methods that are effective on the contaminants that are present in the water.  Boiling can actually concentrate any chemical contaminant that does not vaporize.