Statewide Early Warning System for the Maryland Public Water Supply

Objectives

The objective of this Scope of Work is to complete the installation of early-warning water quality monitoring stations at five locations-four on the middle Potomac River and one in Duckett Reservoir on the Patuxent River.

Statement of Problem

The proximity of Maryland's major water supplies to the National Capital Region creates a unique security challenge. Currently there is no system in place to rapidly detect contamination of the raw water that provides the source for much of Maryland's water supply. Continuous near real time water quality monitoring is needed to provide effective security of Maryland's raw water supplies. Without such monitoring, valuable hours would be lost before a potential contamination event is detected.

Strategy and Approach

The core objectives of the EWS are to provide rapid analytical results and notification of potentially toxic water conditions in order to determine response needs. The EWS will screen a number of parameters with sufficient sensitivity and permit automated, remote monitoring. The primary approach will be to 1) analyze water quality, in locations where baseline conditions are established, and to detect significant departures or "state changes" from the benchmarks that may indicate a contamination event, and 2) employ bio-monitors to detect potentially toxic conditions in water.