Backflow water-line attack feared

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

[Freebird Forever]

Lysergic acid diethylamide would render an entire city insane

I think that this can be mitigated by having all the local radio stations play Grateful Dead bootlegs for 24 hours after the initial exposure.

[Sabertooth]

"Plutonium is heavy, and if tossed into a body of water, would sink to the bottom and into the mud, where it would remain forever, doing absolutely nothing to anybody.

Don't believe me? Then try your own experiment. Toss a chemically-similar metal, "a few grams of lead" [a shotgun pellet would do] into a lake, and let me know when folks start showing symptoms of lead poisoning. "

The plutonium scenario was described to me by a friend of mine who's a physicist. There may be more details that I'm not aware of.

As for chemically similar metals, silver and gold are chemically similar, but not similarly reactive, no?

I'm not a chemist, so I don't know, but are lead and radioactive plutonium going to react the same way when immersed in water?

Silver and Gold don't. Mercury is a neighbor in the periodic table, and it will react even more differently.

[Sabertooth]

Beaver, deer and a lot of other animals naturally carry this parasite. I always found it funny that environmentalists absolutely cannot comprehend this and invariably refer to streams containing Giardia cysts as "polluted."

So can fish.

Even (very rarely) in aquariums.

[Don Joe]

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

All of the "backflow preventers" I've seen have been vacuum breakers, required to prevent chemicals from being sucked into the supply lines if the water pressure fails, which would create a siphon effect. A vacuum breaker will open up when pressure drops, letting air be sucked into the system instead of chemicals. (You see these things on darkroom sinks, they look like a flat-bell-kinda thing at the top of a pipe.)

A check valve, on the other hand, is a one-way valve, i.e., a spring-loaded ball. Water can go one way because it pushes the ball into the spring, away from the valve seat. It can't go the other way, because it pushes the ball into the valve seat.

"Also, how would you prevent terrorists from disabling them?"

With the former, you don't. With the latter, you bury them outside the building, between the water mains and the distribution pipe to the building.

IMO the article paints an overly optimistic picture of the threat. What? Yeah, overly optimistic.

That stuff about "a sudden drop in water pressure in a targeted neighborhood as terrorists stopped the flow of water into a home or business" is IMO feel-good nonsense. If the bad guys hooked up a high pressure pump to a water faucet, opened the faucet, and started the pump injecting concentrated toxin into the pipes at a low rate of volume, I dunno, off the top of my head, a gallon or two a minute, they'd be able to effect a considerable amount of havoc with zero detectibility. I mean, hell, there'd be less pressure change from that than there'd be from someone turning on (or off) the faucet to wash his hands.

And where they got that stuff about a vacuum cleaner, I have no idea.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that our infrastructure -- from top to bottom -- was not designed for survivability in hell. It was designed to perform OK in a normal country, populated with normal people. You don't put a half-million dollars worth of bomb and radiation hardening around a ramshackle outhouse in the backyard. You put a hook-latch on the wooden door. IOW, you build the "security" measures to be commensurate with the anticipated level of threat.

We're facing the kind of nightmare that can only occur when a free society is attacked by a group of sociopaths. And the solution is to either retrofit an ever-increasing amount of safety measures (i.e., checkvalves on every supply line to every house and business in the country -- and mind you, that will only address the "poison into the pipes" problem, all other weak points will remain unprotected), or, to deal with the perpetrators of the crimes, and deal with them quickly, and mercilessly.

It's either that, or we let them win.

[Don Joe]

"Lysergic acid diethylamide would render an entire city insane"

Why bother, when democrat politics, welfare state economics, and garden variety television will do the job so much more effectively? LSD wears off after a few hours, but The Great Society's effects are forever. (Or damned close to it.)

[PA Engineer]

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.

You are correct on all points. The technology to install check valves (BFPV) at each service tap (main) economically is currently available with vacuum truck technology and a drill through then clamp on check valve installation. The problem are company records of how many services exist, the diameter of the service and the type of pipe (copper, ductile, Cast Iron, W. Iron, Steel, Plastic, Galvanised and yes even lead in some locations). The engineering studies would be costly because of the poor record keeping of many (ancient) systems. I will take a SWAG at a unit cost of $1,500 to $1,750 per installation.

I would agree it would take years to retrofit existing, however I would target the larger diameter services (large commerical users) first to get the most efficiency out of the program. Doing the installation at the service tap would greatly reduce the likelyhood of tampering.

However, I can picture it now:

Five middle eastern men were arrested today when they excavated a six foot deep hole in their front yard. It is alleged that the ME men were tampering with the BFP valve when the service tap separated from the main sending a river of water down main street. One of the arrested claimed he was only trying to wash a pair of tennis shoes. Full story at six.

As far:

"Water officials say retrofitting existing structures with the valves would be prohibitively expensive."

I suppose that would depend on what you mean by expensive. I would strongly argue against the notion that it is prohibitively expensive.

[Ditter]

Hi Goldfinch, ask your husband for more info on this. Thanks. ;9)

[glock rocks]

concur. your post is spot on.

[Restorer]

Excellent post.

We cannot make our country safe against attack other than by killing all those who would attack it. Sad, but true.

And something the attackers should have thought seriously about before starting in. Although, from their warped perspective our non-response to their previous, less-efficient attacks essentially were a form of entrapment. We suckered them into this situation, and now they're going to die for it!

[LadyDoc]

I'm not a chemist, so I don't know, but are lead and radioactive plutonium going to react the same way when immersed in water?

Maybe a salt?

I don't know much about plutonium. Lead poisoning is usuall from paint, but there are a few cases due to putting wine into a container that was glazed with lead. Romans got lead poisoning from pipes. And lead batteries have contaminated streams.

If you want to read something frightening, read about "pink disease" caused by mercury poisoning, from industrial waste that was dumped into a Japanese bay and got to people via the fish. There used to be a joke to feed your cats high fat dark meat tuna, since it contained mercury and would kill the cats. I don't know if that was true, but Minnesota Indians are warned not to eat local fish more than twice a week due to pollution.

Again, I can't remember if plutonium or uranium will make a salt. However, you don't really need something that rare.

[PA Engineer]

We posted at the same time. I agree with everything you have said both technically and politically.

[Sabertooth]

If you want to read something frightening, read about "pink disease" caused by mercury poisoning, from industrial waste that was dumped into a Japanese bay and got to people via the fish. There used to be a joke to feed your cats high fat dark meat tuna, since it contained mercury and would kill the cats. I don't know if that was true, but Minnesota Indians are warned not to eat local fish more than twice a week due to pollution.

I grew up drinking "mercury contaminated" water. In the Almaden Valley in San Jose, the Guadalupe Reservoir sits below the old Mercury mines. During a good part of the 19th century, these were the most productive mercury mines in the world. That's where the San Jose Mercury got its name.

Anyway, there were lots of mercury scares back in the 70s, but my Mom still lives there, and I'm not aware of any great epidemic of mercury related illnesses.

Not that mercury isn't toxic, I'm just tossing my experience onto the table.

[Concentrate]

I think that this can be mitigated by having all the local radio stations play Grateful Dead bootlegs for 24 hours after the initial exposure.

LOL!

[Concentrate]

Probably most mercury poisoning comes from broken amalgam fillings in teeth, of which I've got more than several. :)

[piasa]

Just as scary: Lysergic acid diethylamide would render an entire city insane...

Well, that explains Gore Country... not too many wells in Gore Country, all public water distribution systems...

If terrorists didn't consider something as simple as water before they will now... and thanks to the press they have some initial ideas.

[glock rocks]

... and thanks to the press they have some initial ideas.

and... are we are not also the "press"

please, don't underestimate the brain-share horsepower of FR.

[technochick99]

From Post 5 - In most jurisdictions, Back-flow preventors have been required for a decade on new taps for water service.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Dh says, without going into a lot of detail, that it's very easy to insert/inject something into the water supply by disabling or going around the valve. The dual check valve 1" is $15 - $20, not including labor.

[JulieRNR21]

This article certainly could give a potential terrorist ideas & intructions on how to accomplish them....

[Alamo-Girl]

Hmmm ... Thanks for the heads up and your analysis!