A workgroup of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council was convened in May 2011 to assess contamination warning systems for early detection of and response to contamination events in drinking water distribution systems. This article summarizes the workgroup's efforts and excerpts significant findings from the report.

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This article begins by providing examples of the negative impact on a community of losing its water supply, and in particular, the impact of such a loss on hospitals and other health care facilities. AWWA, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), developed a health care facility handbook titled “The Emergency Water Supply Planning Guide for Hospitals and Health Care Facilities”. The goal of this project was to provide guidance for health care facilities in evaluating their water use and determining how it might be curtailed in an emergency, and in developing an emergency water supply plan (EWSP) for the facility. The planning guide walks a facility through four steps to develop an EWSP: Step 1 ‐ assemble the team and background documentation; Step 2 ‐ water use audit; Step 3 ‐ analyze emergency water supply alternatives; and, Step 4 ‐ develop EWSP and test/exercise/revise.

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Physical security such as fences, access control, and closed‐circuit television are critical to the protection of assets, organizational resiliency, and public safety; and utility managers have made great progress in enhancing physical security at their facilities. However, in the past few years the idea of creating not just secure utilities but resilient utilities has become a key focus of the water sector.