OPTIMIZED SYSTEMS

Software Protects Water Supply From Terrorism and Contamination

Rebecca Kutzer-Rice | Date: 08-03-11 | Comments

Despite enhancements in securing physical infrastructure, many water utilities across the country still lack modern technology to protect from contamination. A new software program adapts to existing infrastructure to detect problems in the water supply in real time.

In 1993, a water contamination disaster in Milwaukee led to roughly 100 deaths and made more than 400,000 sick. Although most Americans trust the water in their taps, the risk of contamination, both natural and human-caused, remains high. A new software program, developed by Sandia National Laboratories in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), enhances protection of the water systems by providing rapid detection of problems and alerting utility operators.

"If you don't have a detection system, the way you find out about these things is when people get sick," said Regan Murray, acting associate division director of the EPA's Water Infrastructure Protection Division at the National Homeland Security Research Center, according to a statement.

CANARY Event Detection Software is open-source software that can send alert messages within minutes of a problem arising. It also provides real-time data about water changes, so that officials can track water quality.

"People are excited about it because it's free and because we've shown that it works really well. We would love to have more utilities using it," said Murray. According to Murray and Sean McKenna, the lead Sandia researcher, CANARY could have prevented disasters like the Milwaukee breakout.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the EPA began looking for ways to better protect the water supply from terrorism, as well as from natural contamination. The agency turned to Sandia to develop detection and assessment technology, rather than just focus on the physical security of infrastructure.

CANARY runs on a desktop computer and can be integrated with existing sensors. Many water utilities still test their water on a weekly basis, which can allow time for contaminants to infiltrate the system. CANARY, which provides real-time updates, is much faster than these traditional tests.

"From the start of an event -- when a contaminant reaches the first sensor -- to an event alarm would be 20-40 minutes, depending on how the utility has CANARY configured," McKenna said in a statement.

According to the researchers, the only setback in designing CANARY was training the system to ignore the �background noise� of information caused by the utility system and the harmless substances within it. To avoid this problem, researchers designed algorithms that analyze data coming in from different sensors, in order to distinguish natural variability from problems. A single outlier is not enough for CANARY to send an alert, which saves money and resources from being wasted on false alarms.

�We�ve taken techniques from different fields and put those together in a way they haven�t been put together before; certainly the application of those techniques to water quality monitoring hasn�t been done before,� said McKenna.

Water utilities in Singapore and Cincinnati are currently testing CANARY, and many utilities around the country are evaluating the software for future use.