AWWA WQTC58909

With the threat of terrorist action on our nation's water systems looming, the Erie County Water Authority (ECWA) began to evaluate ways of enhancing its water quality surveillance efforts. The ECWA began to formalize the structure of its water quality surveillance program using its existing capabilities. As a part of this enhancement process, its Department of Water Quality began to look toward the use of the Water Authority's existing geographic information system (GIS) to optimize the water quality surveillance program and increase awareness and response to potential water quality issues. A full-scale water quality surveillance program was developed to monitor the drinking water for the population of just over 500,000 people that it serves in Western New York State. The use of non-conventional testing and monitoring methodologies such as Microtox£ and TOC screening became daily water system monitoring tools. Bacterial levels in the water were scrutinized more than normal, and any questionable toxicity results were followed by in-house GC/MS library searches for possible contaminants. With the Water Quality Surveillance Program in place, the Erie County Water Authority looked to develop ways to enhance the current sampling and testing program. The first step was to realize the current potential of the GIS system. Sample locations were loaded onto the GIS, based upon their physical locations. This provided an initial means of evaluating the placement of sampling locations in the system while also being able to access crucial information such as the size of the water lines, valves or hydrants in close proximity to the sampling sites. Daily sample routes are now developed based upon the locations selected to reflect coverage of the entire water system. The current sampling program provides for sampling daily, including weekends and holidays and allows for coliform, SPC, TOC, and Microtox£ analysis. In the event of a problem in the distribution system the GIS permits a geographical evaluation of all sample sites served by both treatment plants. It allows the user to evaluate a site to determine if a water quality problem is site specific or not and whether it will affect the rest of the distribution system. It also provides an easy manner for detecting those sampling sites closest to the effected area or site within the system. In the event of a major water quality problem, the GIS system allows for a geographic evaluation of the affected area and its infrastructure characteristics, as well as providing a means for the rapid determination of sample sites within a given circumference of the problem site. Under normal sampling and monitoring conditions, the most efficient routes can be planned by the GIS, but in the event of an emergency the GIS can also be used to determine which sampling vehicle in the fleet is closest to the affected site through the use of the Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL). This provides for rapid re-evaluation of the sample site.