U.S. Water News Online
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Terrorists would have a tough time poisoning the nation's drinking water supplies, and public awareness since the Sept. 11 attacks makes it even tougher, Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman said.
Poisoning the reservoir of a city would require dumping a tanker truck load of chemicals or biological agent, and heightened public awareness makes the prospect of anyone getting away with that very unlikely, Whitman told the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Since terrorists hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., the EPA has been working with the FBI so it can train local law enforcement agencies on what to watch out for around the nation's 168,000 drinking water systems, Whitman said.
``Poisoning the water supply is an extremely difficult proposition,'' Whitman said. ``It's gotten much more difficult since Sept. 11.''
Water supplies around the country have come under new security since the Sept. 11 attacks. California, for example, has stepped up patrols of reservoir, aqueducts, and other waterways. A judge recently delayed enforcing a ruling requiring the city of Akron, Ohio, to make its main source of drinking water open for recreational boating, citing the need to guard against terrorist attacks.
Whitman and Interior Secretary Gale Norton were part of a panel discussion on the Bush administration's environmental policies.
In other matters, Norton said the Bush administration would be concentrating on finding long-term solutions to the water supply problems in the Klamath Basin, where Endangered Species Act demands for endangered fish forced the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to shut off irrigation water to more than 1,000 farms.
She made a point of saying the Department of Interior would be paying special attention to suggestions from farmers and ranchers in the region.
``Farmers and ranchers are often the best stewards of the land,'' she said. ``We can achieve more by working with them, and capitalizing on their intimate knowledge.''
The Klamath Water Users Association, representing farmers depending on the Klamath Project for irrigation water, recently dropped out of federal me diation which has brought together environmentalists, Indian tribes, commercial fishermen, and other interests to look for long-term solutions on which they all can agree.
The farmers have also filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the federal government, claiming shutting off the water last summer violated private property rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
``One thing is clear. There are no easy answers,'' Norton said.
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