Apr 17, 2002 2 min read

An alarm last week at a water treatment plant turned out to be nothing more than a minor break-in. For that the customers whose drinking water is supplied from the Dunkard Valley, Greene County water treatment plant can be grateful. A year ago, few would have given much thought to an alarm at a water treatment plant. Police responding to the call and the treatment plant operators charged with assessing damage and perhaps itemizing stolen goods might have been the only ones bothering to notice.

But since Sept. 11, there is an increasing fear that terrorists would and could tamper and taint drinking water supplies. So every alarm, even a minor break-in as was the case here with little damage done to the plant, must be treated as a serious security breach. To that end, water supplies were quickly taken and tested for contaminants and students and staff at the Mapletown High School, supplied by the water treatment plant, were given a day off. The Dunkard Valley Joint Municipal Authority 1,200 customers were switched to another source as thousands of gallons of water at the plant were dumped as a precaution.

Tests showed that no one was ever in danger. But who could have known that when the alarm sounded? The authority acted prudently, with minimal disruption to its customers, in mounting a swift response.