The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed a program to pilot multi-component contamination warning systems (CWSs), known as the “Water Security initiative (WSi).” The Cincinnati pilot has been fully operational since January 2008, and an additional four pilot utilities will have their own, custom CWSs by the end of 2012. A workshop amongst the pilot cities was conducted in May 2012 to discuss lessons learned from the design, implementation, operation, maintenance, and evaluation of each city’s PHS component.
Objective
This paper describes the lessons learned from operation and maintenance of the public health surveillance (PHS) component of five pilot city drinking water contamination warning systems (CWS) including: Cincinnati, New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Dallas.