Backflow water-line attack feared

WSJ via MSNBC | December27,2001 | Yochi J. Dreazen

[TroutStalker]

Bump to the top.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

We own an irrigation company. I am woefully ignorant myself in the area of mechanical operations of such systems, my husband being the expert in the design/installation area, but I seem to remember that he installs a backflow preventer in every new system, between the water meter and the main line of the system, and I don't remember it being that expensive. This backflow preventer inhibits, in the case of water lines/sprinkler heads installed in turf areas, the seepage of contaminants from that area back into the main water supply.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

1.) End immigration from the Mideast (and the third world in general).
2.) Kill all terrorist and their sponsors.
3.) Remove barriers to energy self-sufficiency.
- or -
4.) Die.

[KC Burke]

In most jurisdictions, Back-flow preventors have been required for a decade on new taps for water service. However, the thousands of existing homes, facilities, fire sprinkler systems and irrigation systems that pre-existed that requirement have the ability to allow contaminants into the localized portion of the water system to which they are connected.

If an arm or potion of a system becomes polluted or contaminated it can be flushed and, even, sterilized. However there can be a lot of time for the contaminant to move within the system prior to finding the locale and source of a problem. First the illness must incubate or manifest symptoms. Then they have to be diagnosed. Then, after diagnosis, the illness has to be vectored back to a particular water source such as home, office or short-visited establishment that was contaminated internally or from outside, nearby, utility contamination. Even then, samples must be gathered and tested.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues is that we are a society that is angered by inconvienience. Shutting down a potion of a town's water system at the first inkling of a problem will produce backlash as toilets and washing machines must stop as well. Boil Orders aren't carefully followed in instances of benign contamination during a flood.

[Sabertooth]

What's the difference between a "backflow preventer" and a check valve?

Seems to me installing check vavles at the mains going into buildings and residences would make this type of terrorism more difficult, but it would take years to accomplish.

Also, how would you prevent terrorists from disabling them?

The scariest water terror scenario I've heard so far would be to take a few grams of plutonium and toss it into a reservoir. Easier than making a bomb, and a coordinated attack could poison a large region. Chlorine would be useless.

[Sir Gawain]

I have well water.

[Sabertooth]

I have well water.

I'm curious, do you run it through reverse osmosis? Well water in California is going to all be toxic in a few years because the clean-air Nazis have forced us to put MTBE in our gasoline. It's contaminating the water table throughout the state.

Home filtration could help with some of these problems. Activated carbon and a several stage R.O. system with a final stage of 5 microns will eliminate a lot of toxins.

[ppaul]

The scariest water terror scenario I've heard so far would be to take a few grams of plutonium and toss it into a reservoir. Easier than making a bomb, and a coordinated attack could poison a large region. Chlorine would be useless.

Just as scary: Lysergic acid diethylamide would render an entire city insane, would take only minute amounts thrown into a reservoir to be effective, and is much easier to acquire than plutonium (can be homemade). Scary, eh?

[Sabertooth]

I'm not sure I understand how the bckflow happens, but I'll take the experts word for it.

Let's say you have a vat of poison, some pvc, and a water pump capable of more head pressure than your tap.

Hook up the plumbing to the pump, drop it into the vat, and hook the other end to the tap.

Open up the tap and fire up the pump. You'll empty the vat of poison into the water main, and everyone downstream from you gets the juice.

This would be really easy to do for a grand or two, if you catered the attack and had an open bar.

[Sabertooth]

Just as scary: Lysergic acid diethylamide would render an entire city insane, would take only minute amounts thrown into a reservoir to be effective, and is much easier to acquire than plutonium (can be homemade). Scary, eh?

LSD would degrade rather quickly in water, and you'd need a hell of a lot. Radioactive materials, once obtained, would be a lot more effective.

[BigBobber]

When I first read this I thought backflow didn't seem like a very good way to distribute toxins. On further reflection, I can see how it could be done quite easily to affect a large number of people.

Backflow valves at every branch in the water mains are going to be needed to localize any problem. Something else to worry about.

In the end, when this and other anti-terror measures are installed, we will have a safer nation---but the cost will be high.

[ppaul]

LSD would degrade rather quickly in water.....

Not quickly enough. And, a tiny amount goes a long way.

[rockfish59]

let's plutonium baghdad before baghdad plutonium's us!

[Sabertooth]

Not quickly enough. And, a tiny amount goes a long way.

The LSD in the reservoir scare is old 60s tinfoil, deliberately started by the Yippies to create an atmosphere of chaos for the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. It's fantasy. The Yippies laughed over doobies that it was ever taken seriously. Check out "Revolution for the Hell of It" or "Soon to be a Major Motion Picture" by Abbie Hoffman. The story is in at least one of those books, if not both. It's been 20 years since I read them.

Trust me on this, I went to Berkeley.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Still, experts have long feared that a terrorist would try an intentional attack. As Gay Porter DeNileon - a journalist who serves on the National Critical Infrastructure Protection Advisory Group, a water-industry organization - put it in the May issue of the journal of the American Water Works Association, "One sociopath who understands hydraulics and has access to a drum of toxic chemicals could inflict serious damage pretty quickly."

Sounds scary.

[Amelia]

Do ya suppose they could come up with one or two other things for us to worry about?

[veronica]

Happy New Year big tabby!