5.2 Water

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The water sector consists of two basic components: fresh water supply and wastewater collection and treatment. Infrastructures are diverse, complex, and distributed, ranging from systems that serve a few customers to those that serve millions. On the supply side there over 170,000 public water systems that depend on reservoirs, dams, wells, and aquifers, as well as treatment facilities, pumping stations, aqueducts, and transmission pipelines. The wastewater sector has over 19,500 municipal sanitary sewer systems, including an estimated 800,000 miles of sewer lines that collect and treat sewage and process water from domestic, commercial, and industrial sources. The wastewater sector also includes storm, water systems, which collect and sometimes treat storm-water runoff. Table 5.2 shows DHS security initiatives in the water sector.

Initiatives

Identify high-priority vulnerabilities and improve site security.

Improve sector monitoring and analytic capabilities.

Improve sectorwide information exchange and coordinate contingency planning.

Work with other sectors to manage unique risks resulting from interdependencies.

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