Water intentional contamination

Caution Avoid drinking unpasteurized milk products and practice good veterinary vaccination practices to avoid natural forms of brucellosis. In a terrorism attack with aerosol, livestock could possibly become contaminated. If this occurs, animal products should be pasteurized, boiled, or thoroughly cooked prior to eating. Water would have to be treated by boiling or iodination after any intentional contamination with brucella aerosols. 

The primary feature affecting the security of a reservoir cover is its ability to maintain its integrity. Any type of cover, no matter what its construction material, will provide good protection from contamination by rainwater or atmospheric deposition, as well as from intruders attempting to access the stored water with the intent of causing intentional contamination. The covers are large and heavy, and it is difficult to circumvent them to get into the reservoir. At the very least, it would take a determined intruder, as opposed to a vandal, to defeat the cover. 

All point source and nonpoint source wastewaters at an industrial site must be properly managed for source separation, waste minimization, volume reduction, collection, pretreatment, and/or complete end-of-pipe treatment [39,47]. When industrial waste is not disposed of properly, hazardous substances may contaminate a nearby surface water (river, lake, sea, or ocean) and/or groundwater. Any hazardous substance release, either intentionally or unintentionally, increases the risk of water supply contamination and human disease. Major waterborne contaminants and their health effects are listed below. 

The great majority of chemicals that may be of concern in drinking-water are associated with these five source categories, but other sources not considered in this publication may occasionally be important. Examples of other sources are military operations and facilities, and accidental or intentional contamination of water supplies. These situations need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and may require highly specialized expertise. 

Special Considerations Intentional Contamination of Food or Water with Biologic Agents... 

It is difficult to predict the vulnerability of our food and water supply to a deliberate attack. Within most industriahzed countries, food and water supplies are safe for consumption. However, the increased centralization of food production and water distribution in the United States gives potential saboteurs an opportunity to affect a large population (67). For large centralized food or water production and distribution systems, the potential size of an outbreak following intentional contamination increases as the contamination point gets closer to the site of production or distribution. In addition to morbidity and mortality, deliberate attacks on food and water supplies could have significant economic impact, even if the affected population is relatively small (67,68). Although the contamination was not intentional, in 1998 a US company recalled 30 million pounds of frankfurters and luncheon meat due to possible Listeria contamination, at a cost of 50- 70 million (67). 

Although intentional contamination of indnstrialized water supplies is possible, there is no evidence anyone has been successful in carrying it out. Modem sanitation practices present several barriers preventing effective contamination of a water snpply, inclnding (67) ... 

Fortunately, several factors, including dilution, specific inactivation by chorine, ozone or other disinfectants, nonspecific inactivation by natural factors such as sunlight and microbes, filtration, and the small quantity of water individuals consume reduce the risk of disease from intentional contamination of water supplies (45). A few water treatment facilities add activated carbon to filter media to control taste, odor, and other chemical problems. These filters may provide additional protection against some of the organic toxins (45). The international recall of Perrier bottled water due to concerns abont benzene contamination is evidence that bottled water is susceptible to contamination (45). 

T. P. Allman, Drinking water distribution system modeling for predicting the impact and detection of intentional contamination. Masters Thesis, Colorado State University, Dept of Engineering, Fort Collins Colorado, Summer (2003). 

Food defense plan Applicants are required to develop a food defense plan that is, a plan that protects against intentional contamination [by] the introduction of chemical or biological hazards into food, water, or facilities by individuals seeking to harm students or staff (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). 

Emergency response plans (ERPs) are nothing new to chemical industries, since many have developed ERPs to deal with natural disasters, accidents, violence in the workplace, civil unrest, and so on. Because chemical industries are a vital part and ingredient of our way of life, it has been prudent for chemical industries to develop ERPs in order to help ensure the continuous flow of water to the community. However, many chemical industry ERPs developed prior to 9/11 do not explicitly deal with terrorist threats, such as intentional fire, explosion, or contamination. Recently, the U.S. Congress and federal regulators have required chemical industries to prepare or revise, as necessary, an ERP to reflect the findings of their vulnerability assessment and to address terrorist threats. 

Radioactive substances (radionuclides) are known health hazards that emit energetic waves and/or particles that can cause both carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic health effects. Radionuclides pose unique threats to source water supplies and chemical processing, storage, or distribution systems because radiation emitted from radionuclides in chemical or industrial waste systems can affect individuals through several pathways by direct contact with, ingestion or inhalation of, or external exposure to, the contaminated waste stream. While radiation can occur naturally in some cases due to the decay of some minerals, intentional and nonintentional releases of... 

Doses that cause acute death in humans and animals are relatively large. For humans, reports of death following oral exposure were a result of intentional ingestion of a high concentration of 1,2-dibromoethane. Human death following dermal and inhalation exposure occurred in two accidentally-exposed workers. It is therefore highly unlikely that there would be a risk to humans of death under conditions of low-level, long-term exposure from contaminated food or water. 

The term acceptable is used widely to describe safe levels of intake and is apphed for chemicals to be used in food production such as, e.g., food additives, pesticides, and veterinary dmgs. The term tolerable is applied for chemicals unavoidably present in a media such as contaminants in, e.g., drinking water and food. The term PTWI (Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake) is generally used for contaminants that may accumulate in the body, and the weekly designation is used to stress the importance of limiting intake over a period of time for such substances. The tolerable intake is similar in definition and intent to terms such as Reference Dose and Reference Concentration (RfD/RfC), which are widely used by, e.g., the US-EPA. For some substances, notably pesticides, the ARID (Acute Reference Dose), is also established, often from shorter-term studies than those that would support the ADI. The ARfD is defined as the amount of a substance in food that can be consumed in the course of a day or at a single meal with no adverse effects. 

The intent of equipment rinsate blank collection as a field QC sample seems reasonable. In reality, however, equipment blank analyses rarely provide information that can be meaningfully related to the field samples because the only contaminants that are usually present in equipment blanks are common laboratory contaminants or byproducts of water disinfection process. 

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