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Congress Ponders Water Security Concerns |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Monday, 11 August 2008 |
CRS report examines DHS/EPA relationship
An examination of water security issues in the most recent session of Congress emphasized concerns about coordination between the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as a debate over whether water facilities should fall under chemical security regulations, according to congressional researchers.
The Federation of American Scientists last week released the report on the water infrastructure sector by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), recently updated on July 28.
"There are no federal standards or agreed upon industry practices within the water infrastructure sector to govern readiness, response to security incidents, and recovery," wrote Claudia Copeland, specialist in Resource and Environmental Policy in the CRS Resources, Science and Industry Division, in the report.
Copeland noted that Congress has provided about $794 million in spending for security in the water infrastructure sector, most recently defined by the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) developed by DHS. The water infrastructure sector operates under a sector-specific plan--the execution of which is developed by public and private committees working together with the EPA as the leading federal agency.
EPA has provided grants to water utilities under its Water Sector Initiative for testing and demonstrating warning systems that would alert authorities to any contamination of their water systems. EPA has awarded grants to Cincinnati, New York and San Francisco to date since 2005, and the agency plans to additional awards in the near future.
Still, Congress remains concerned about the coordination between DHS and EPA. The House Appropriations Committee included language in its draft report on homeland security appropriations for fiscal 2009 to urge the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate to collaborate with EPA "to improve federal outreach to water system managers, increase support and guidance on implementation of risk assessment techniques, and publicize effective protective measures that can be taken to increase water system security," according to the CRS report.
Congress continued to debate whether or not drinking water and wastewater facilities should fall under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS), largely because of their use of chlorine gas. Presently, water and wastewater utilities are exempt from CFATS, but a bill (HR 5577) has been introduced that would include them under the security standards. Another bill (HR 5533) would leave them exempt.
In 2002, Congress passed a bioterrorism bill (PL 107-188) that required drinking water utilities to conduct security vulnerability assessments. In addition, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigated the use of security assessments at wastewater facilities in 2006, finding that most of them had completed or planned to complete a vulnerability assessment.
A key issue prompting the call for security assessments was the use of gaseous chlorine as a disinfectant. Chlorine clouds could pose a significant health hazard if released into the surrounding environment by a terrorist attack or other disaster.
Many wastewater facilities told GAO in 2006 that they did not use chlorine as a wastewater disinfect, instead depending on sodium hypochlorite or ultraviolet light. In 2007, GAO estimated that conversion from disinfecting with chlorine gas to another means could cost facilities from $650,000 to more than $13 million.
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Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
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