Science Inventory

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This study characterized Bacillus globigii (BG) as a Bacillus anthracis Sterne (BAS) surrogate for wastewater treatment-related studies of UV inactivation, adsorption onto powdered activated carbon (PAC), and bioaerosol emission. The inactivation of BG was faster than that of BAS...

The Water Security Test Bed (WSTB) is a full-scale representation of a drinking water distribution pipe that conveys potable water. It is the product of a partnership between Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Currently, the syste...

The timely decontamination of high-density urban areas is critical in the face of a terror event involving radioactive cesium (Cs), which has a 30- year half-life with an energetic 662 keV gamma ray released during decay. This technical brief is intended for local, state and fede...

The delivery of safe, potable water to communities is the primary objective of drinking water utilities. However, the quality of the water can deteriorate as it is transported from the treatment plant through the distribution system to the customers due to interactions with the p...

Drinking water utilities are vulnerable to both human-caused and natural disasters that can impact the system infrastructure and the delivery of potable water to consumers. Resilience analysis can help utilities identify high-risk areas in their system and understand how to bette...

This brief provides operating information based on reviewed field experience [1] and laboratory experiments [2-5]. While it discusses general safety, this technical brief does not discuss the safe operation of pressurized sprayer equipment to avoid physical hazards which are typi...

The RRLT database includes detailed information on the equipment’s everyday function, its effectiveness on different surfaces and forms of radioactive contaminants, the scale for which the equipment may be applied, the skill required of the operator, utility requirements, legal a...

Drinking water utilities are vulnerable to both human-caused and natural disasters that can impact the system infrastructure and the delivery of potable water to consumers. Resilience analysis can help utilities identify high-risk areas in their system and understand how to bette...

Drinking water storage tanks serve several important functions, which include but are not limited to providing an adequate water supply in the case of firefighting emergencies, power outages, water main breaks, or other system failures. The water level elevation in storage tanks ...

Drinking water utilities face multiple challenges, including aging infrastructure, water quality concerns, pipe breaks, natural disasters, environmental emergencies, and terrorist attacks. All of these have the potential to disrupt service to customers and damage critical infrast...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Sandia National Laboratories have developed the Water Network Tool for Resilience (WNTR) to quantify resilience of drinking water distribution systems. WNTR is a Python package designed to simulate disaster scenarios and analyze impact...

This chapter introduces the Water Network Tool for Resilience (WNTR) and how it can be used to evaluate drinking water distribution system (WDS) resilience. At the end of this chapter, the reader will be able to install and run WNTR, set up and run various disaster scenario simul...

To mitigate the effects following a large-scale nuclear or radiological material release in an urban environment and to expedite recovery, the Integrated Wash-Aid Treatment Emergency Reuse System (IWATERS) was developed. IWATERS consists of three operations: washing contaminated ...

This paper presents the process used to develop an overland flow model of radionuclide transport following an aerosol deposition from a hypothetical radiological dispersal device explosion. The process included the integration of digital elevation, building, and land cover inform...

This study utilizes organism viability to evaluate the persistence of three pathogen surrogates in bio-contaminated wastewater using a pilot-scale activated sludge treatment (AST) system, operated to perform like a large-scale wastewater treatment process. The persistence of high...

This document describes procedures for collecting and concentrating water samples in a field setting for waterborne pathogen and biothreat agent detection. The methods describe water sampling by concentrating large volumes of water in the field via dead-end ultrafiltration (DEUF)...

The two Category-5 hurricanes that impacted the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017 exposed critical infrastructure vulnerabilities that needs to be addressed. While the water utility has first-hand knowledge about how the hurricanes impacted their systems, the use of modeling and simula...

Enhancing rapid remediation strategies is paramount for recovery after a large-scale nuclear contamination event in an urban environment. Some current strategies recommend use of readily available equipment, materials, and facilities to expedite recovery. For example, applying pr...

Sodium fluoroacetate is a highly lethal pesticide, which is registered for use to control livestock. It does not have a known antidote and is stable in potable water. If a water contamination incident with this pesticide were to occur, a fast, robust analytical method would be ne...

This paper presents a Stormwater Emergency Response Framework (SERF) for use in the containment and treatment of stormwater runoff following a hazardous material release. The framework consists of four high level process steps and a decision tree. These resources are intended to ...

Drinking water utilities deliver high-quality, potable water to consumers. However, they could be at risk for potential accidental or intentional contamination incidents in the distribution system. Research showed the potential benefit of continuous, online sensors to monitor wat...

In this work, we measured the flow rate of sand/clay columns as a function of saturation time, composition, and the presence of filter material at the bottom of the column.

The primary objective of this study was to quantify the dose incurred to workers performing a remediation recovery effort for roadways and buildings following a wide-area release event.

This study evaluated the effect of two biocontaminant surrogates on the activity and performance of activated sludge. In the presence of bacteriophage MS2 at 3.2 × 108 PFU/ml, the peak respiration rates varied between 9.1 and 10.5 mg O2/gVSS/hr, generally similar to the rates obs...

During WSD's review of its recent "Decontamination Preparedness and Assessment Strategy", reviewers requested a "how-to" tool for completing some technical aspects of the strategy, specifically those related to selecting technologies for water treatment and system decontamination...