Sensing and Notification
With the nation's water infrastructure impossible to secure, automated systems may provide a means to detect and analyze microorganisms within a water distribution system. The sheer vastness of the water network, with its "raw water" reservoirs and tens of thousands of miles of exposed aqueducts and pipeline with little or minimal security, make it logically and fiscally impossible to completely police. Detection and analysis systems can be deployed at various stages along a water distribution system, near, or as part of, a treatment system, thereby allowing for protection (e.g., detection, treatment) redundancy. The systems, including detection/analysis means, can be networked to a remote monitoring (e.g., command and control units) through wired and/or wireless networking and communication systems. Networked monitoring and assessment can enable rapid deployment of counter measures within affected water distribution systems and populated communities, to include emergency shut-off of control valves that can be associated with the present systems.
In general, the commercial application of biological toxicity monitoring is quite new. Many biological toxicity-monitoring systems have been developed for site-specific applications, and there is little opportunity to compare commercially available products. Therefore, it is difficult to directly define sensitivities and detection limits of biological toxicity meters at the current time. However, sensitivities of some products may be compared relative to each other. For example, temperature control is important in increasing the accuracy of the toxicity measurement, and systems that have temperature controls are considered to be more accurate in measuring and reproducing results than those without temperature controls.
Biological toxicity monitors provide a kind of relative, nonspecific indication of water quality rather than precise, reportable measurements of specific parameters. The non-specificity is partly by design, because some biological toxicity monitors are typically used to provide a first-order screening test.
- Real-time reporting of toxicity detection to remote facilities.
- Employment of evasive action to deny/treat toxicity.
Implementation Scenario
Potential for use at critical points in water distribution systems (for example, at potentially vulnerable points downstream of distribution pump stations) to detect contamination added to water after treatment. Sensors deployed at nodes along a water distribution system are designed to sample water and detect whether harmful biological contaminants are present. Sampling results can be reported in near-real time over data communications networks to remote command/operation centers. The command/operation center can determine whether evasive action must be taken to prevent continued transport of water through the water distribution system based on the report. Water distribution can be shut off at control valves located downstream from the reported location. Water can also be treated with UV treatment systems, if provided, at downstream locations. Personnel and off-line testing systems can be dispatched to the reporting location to perform confirmation testing on samples following the initial report to the command center. A portable laboratory environment can be deployed as part of the dispatch team. The dispatch team can also investigate the water distribution system upstream from the sample location to secure any breach(es) that might be discovered in the distribution system.
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