Linking Public Health and Water Utilities to Improve Emergency Response

Intentional contamination of a drinking water system may be discovered in several ways. If the potential contamination is unannounced or covert, its first indications might be detected by the water utility operating the system or by the public health system. In contrast, if a terrorist group announces a contamination event (or the threat of one), water utilities and the health-care system both may learn about the event simultaneously through such channels as mass media. Various other scenarios are also possible, such as a threat being telephoned to a water utility. In all of these scenarios, water utilities and the public health system must work together to respond to real or threatened contamination of drinking water supplies.