Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A prime example of the use of the multiple-barrier approach to ensure
security and safety is demonstrated by the practices of the bottled water
industry. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the increased emphasis on homeland
security, a shifted paradigm of national security and vulnerability awareness
has emerged. Recall that in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 tragedies,
emergency responders and others responded quickly and worked to exhaus-
tion. In addition to the emergency responders, bottled water companies
responded immediately by donating several million bottles of water to the
crews at the crash sites in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania.
The International Bottled Water Association reported that “within hours of
the first attack, bottled water was delivered where it mattered most: to emer-
gency personnel on the scene who required ample water to stay hydrated as
they worked to rescue victims and clean up debris” (IBWA, 2004, p. 2).
Bottled water companies continued to provide bottled water to responders
and rescuers at the 9/11 sites for the duration. These patriotic actions by the
bottled water companies, however, beg the question: How do we ensure the
safety and security of the bottled water provided to anyone? IBWA's answer
is to use a multiple-barrier approach, along with other defense principles, to
enhance the safety and security of bottled water. IBWA (2004, p. 3) described
its multiple-barrier approach as follows:
A multiple-barrier approach
—Bottled water products are produced utiliz-
ing a multiple-barrier approach, from source to finished product, that
helps prevent possible harmful contaminants (physical, chemical or
microbiological) from adulterating the finished product as well as stor-
age, production, and transportation equipment. Measures in a multiple-
barrier approach may include source protection, source monitoring,
reverse osmosis, distillation, filtration, ozonation or ultraviolet (UV)
light. Many of the steps in a multibarrier system may be effective in safe-
guarding bottled water from microbiological and other contamination.
Piping in and out of plants, as well as storage silos and water tankers are
also protected and maintained through sanitation procedures. In addi-
tion, bottled water products are bottled in a controlled, sanitary environ-
ment to prevent contamination during the filling operation.
In water infrastructure security,
protection in depth
is used to describe a
layered security approach. A protection-in-depth strategy uses several forms
of security techniques and devices against an intruder and does not rely
on a single defensive mechanism to protect infrastructure. By implementing
multiple layers of security, a hole or flaw in one layer is covered by the other
layers, and an intruder will have to break through each layer without being
detected. This layered approach implies that no matter how they attempt
to accomplish their goal, intruders will encounter effective elements of the
physical protection system.
In the following sections, various security hardware and devices are
described. These devices serve the main purpose of providing security
against physical or digital intrusion; that is, they are designed to delay and
