Hi all…the Water Research Foundation has just released a report entitled “A Methodology for Locating and Managing Dynamic Potential Source Water Contaminant Data – Project 4581.” “The purpose of the project was to develop and demonstrate a methodology for identifying potential sources of contamination upstream of drinking water intakes, particularly from above ground storage tanks (ASTs) and their contents…A key objective was to develop an information systems approach to visualize and analyze potential sources of contamination using a Geographic Information System (GIS).” It is available at no charge from:

http://www.waterrf.org/Pages/Projects.aspx?PID=4581 or http://www.waterrf.org/PublicReportLibrary/4581.pdf

The report concluded the following (among others). When you think about it, these findings are pretty likely to be applicable in most jurisdictions.

  1. “The most significant gaps were the number of ASTs identified in aerial imagery for which no data about size, contents or condition were availablein existing datasets.”
  2. There was a “general lack of information about treatability and chemical and toxicological properties for many contaminants, especially those that were considered trade secrets or were less commonly encountered.”
  3. “Some potentially important datasets and databases had limited access for non-government or non-first responder users…”

Bill

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OBJECTIVES

Continued from above “…The project was designed to help drinking water utilities follow the American Water Works Association (AWWA) G300 Standard (American Water Works Association 2014) and guidance (Sham et al. 2010) to complete and update source water characterizations, develop action plans, implement source water protection (SWP) practices, and evaluate and revise their SWP programs. This report provides guidance and a methodology to address many of the elements of a source water characterization (Table 1.1): delineation of upstream contributing areas, collection of water quality and quantity data, and identification of contaminant sources and land use patterns. The work also contributes to emergency preparedness, incident response, and health and safety management efforts.”