The Water Security 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 is to establish recommendations for the design and deployment of contamination warning systems for voluntary adoption by drinking water utilities. EPA is implementing the Water Security 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.

"EPA 817-R-08-001." "October 2008." Title taken from title screen (viewed Oct 28, 2008).

This document will assist drinking water utilities with the development of plans for responding to and recovering from a contamination incident in the distribution system. Once a possible contamination incident has been identified by routine monitoring and surveillance components, the consequence management plan defines a process for establishing the credibility of the suspected incident, the response actions that may be taken to minimize public health and economic consequences, and a strategy to restore the system to normal operations. Example decision tree templates and corresponding action items are provided.