U.S. Water News Online
MILWAUKEE -- Scientists in the city that experienced the largest waterborne disease outbreak in the industrialized world are working to defend drinking water from terrorism.
The Center for Water Security is believed to be the nation's only lab devoted to freshwater security where scientists are developing technology such as zebrafish ``sentinels.''
``There's no substitute for water,'' said Val Klump, the center's director. ``You have to have it, and you have to have it clean.''
The lab on the shores of Lake Michigan was dedicated in June, 10 years after Milwaukee and its surrounding areas were hit by more than 100 deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses from water tainted with a bacterial parasite.
Jacqueline Cattani, director of the Center for Biological Defense at the University of South Florida, said the Center for Water Security is likely the only one of its kind. But she and others say it's hard to know for certain because of the quantity of bioterrorism research.
Lake Michigan is the largest single drinking water supply system in the world, supplying Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. About 10 million people in the Midwest drink, shower and cook with Lake Michigan water.
The center is housed on the shores of the lake in a 10,000-square-foot brick warehouse built as a tile factory in the early 1960s. It's now owned and run by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Inside, bustling biology professors and interns with measuring beakers study anthrax-eating bacteria, engineer fish to light up like fireflies and test water filters' effectiveness against E. coli, cryptosporidium and an anthrax-type organism.
One of the projects uses zebrafish, which can detect waterborne biotoxins quickly and efficiently, said Michael J. Carvan, who is in charge of the research.
The hundreds of tiny, gray zebrafish in dozens of shoebox-size tanks look more like cheap bait than ``sentinels.'' But each is genetically engineered to light up like a firefly when it encounters different varieties and potencies of chemicals.
During testing, all the zebrafish are exposed to, for example, a high dose of E. coli. Only the fish that has the gene to react to high potency E. coli should light up. The fish programmed for a low dose of E. coli or anthrax should remain dull gray.
But like the center itself, the project is still a work in progress.
``We can get them to light up,'' Carvan said. ``But they don't pass that trait onto the next generation.''
Once these projects are finished, the new technology will be available to water security agencies throughout the country. Most projects deal with early detection and warning.
``A large part of figuring out your response is first knowing the diagnosis,'' Klump said. ``We want to know what's in the water and what's going on.''
One project speeds up and increases the accuracy of detecting pathogens in the water. Another project senses the purity of water as it flows through supply pipes. Another monitors a microscopic animal to see if it can tip off scientists when it encounters contamination.
Many of the ideas for these projects have been in the works since 1993, when the bacterial parasite cryptosporidium seeped into Lake Michigan by an unknown source and sickened hundreds of thousands in Milwaukee with diarrhea.
In the end, 403,000 people were taken ill and more than 100 died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The federal funding to start the center -- $2 million from the Department of Defense -- came after authorities stepped up security at nearly every agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Klump said Milwaukee installed safeguards against cryptosporidium after the 1993 outbreak, but the city remains aware of the threat to drinking water.
``This community is pretty sensitive to the issue of water security,'' Klump said. ``So when the idea for the security center was proposed, there was instant credibility.''
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