•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
HydroSecure was designed in collaboration with the US Government to treat water at the point of entry to a secure or sensitive facility, institution or residence. The Government recognized that attacks on water supplies have been a tactic of warfare for millennia. Following closely on 9/11, terrorists were apprehended in tunnels under the US Embassy in Rome armed with cyanide and maps of the Embassy water system. In addition, water poisoning was suspected in other significant illness outbreaks (specifically, in US commercial establishments and in military facilities in Iraq). As a result, the Department of State and the Department of Defense worked through the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism Technology Support Program, Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) to identify new treatment systems that would be capable of defeating such attacks in the future.
Strategies to address threats to municipal water supplies have focused primarily on increased security and access control at central treatment facilities; however, these strategies require significant resources and do not focus on the greatest vulnerability. The smaller volumes and dispersed nature of the water distribution systems offer more effective targets and higher risk of contamination well after the water has left the treatment facility. This vulnerability was confirmed in separate studies by the US EPA, the National Research Council, and the Department of Homeland Security.
After a nationwide competitive evaluation, the Government selected the system offered by Worrell Water Technologies, LLC and known as HydroSecure™. The co‑inventors of HydroSecure are on the WWT team, as Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing and Director of Science and Technology.
HydroSecure was subjected to an extensive and demanding series of independent tests with Government oversight in the laboratory and in the field. The Government developed stringent challenges of chemical and biological contaminants that they characterized as the “maximum credible scenario”; that is, the most severe challenge that was possible under the worst‑case attack conditions. The HydroSecure defeated all of the threats in these tests devised by DOS and DOD experts, including challenges from chemical warfare agents, biological contaminants, hallucinogens, and industrial and agricultural chemicals. It is the only drinking water system available that has passed this level of testing (see our summary of the System Performance for additional test information).
HydroSecure demonstrated in TSWG testing the capability of providing safe, continuous drinking water in high threat environments and mission‑critical facilities. Following successful testing of full size units in the laboratory, the system was installed at one of the highest‑value, mission‑critical facilities in the Washington, DC area and demonstrated the ability to provide all water needs and full‑time water protection.
HydroSecure was designed, built, and tested with DOD and DOS oversight, and then deployed to serve critical government needs. Now, the government has authorized WWT to offer HydroSecure to the commercial market. WWT has refined and upgraded the initial government system to meet commercial and residential standards.