The Water Security (WS) initiative is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that addresses the risk of intentional contamination of drinking water distribution systems. Initiated in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, the overall goal of WS is to design and deploy contamination warning systems for drinking water utilities. EPA is implementing the WS initiative in three phases: (1) development of a conceptual design that achieves timely detection and appropriate response to drinking water contamination incidents; (2) demonstration and evaluation of the conceptual design in full-scale pilots at drinking water utilities; and (3) issuance of guidance and conduct outreach to promote voluntary national adoption of effective and sustainable drinking water contamination warning systems. This report addresses the second phase of the program, specifically a description of the initial pilot as implemented in Cincinnati, Ohio. EPA's objectives for this initial pilot were to demonstrate the conceptual design for a contamination warning system and to gain experience that would support the development of guidance and tools for other drinking water utilities.

"EPA 817-R-08-004." "September 2008." Title taken from title screen (viewed Oct 28, 2008).

This document describes the status of the Cincinnati drinking water contamination warning system pilot following the installation of all monitoring and surveillance components. It provides detailed information on enhancements in the areas of on-line water quality monitoring, contaminant sampling and analysis, enhanced security monitoring, consumer complaint surveillance, public health surveillance, and consequence management.