Water Safety-Walkerton: Multi-Barrier Approaches Cont'd

Barrier Approach #4: Monitoring System

An extensive monitoring system is another esstential component in ensuring water is safe and potable for the community. Several protocols to follow include:

Having a instantaneous monitoring system that takes continuous and frequent measurements of the pH, temperature, chlorine residues in the water, turbidity, conductivity, pressure and flow rates.
Making any adjustments as necessary at the control center when certain parameters pertaining to drinking water do not meet up to municipal standards
Conducting microbial testing on the water regularly at the laboratory
Using a guidance manual that is designed to provide proper sampling procedures (e.g. standard methods for collection, transportion, custody, labeling, testing, and reporting of drinking water samples and testing all scheduled contaminants)
Having the technology that is reliable and efficient in collecting data
Generating and disseminating reports to consumers and Ministry of Environment

Barrier Approach #5: Emergency Response Plan

Emergency response plan should be implemented to readily deal with unusual and unexpected situations. Basically this type of plan include the following points:

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Hazard identification and summary. Questions to asked: is the hazard natural or man-made? Is it from a flood, forest fire, a water contamination and a waterborne outbreak?
Risk assessment is based on the criticalness of the component that is affected to the system, the age of the component, the cost of mitigation, and programs available for replacement or construction of those components that are affected
Preparedness planning. Create clear definition of all operator and employees' roles, and have a good communication system between parties involved
Emergency response, recovery and training address what response is appropriate to take, what to do after an adverse event, and what type of training is adequate to deal with an emergency

Barrier Approach #6: Operator and Employee

The lack of employee training was the result of the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton. Therefore, one of the most effective prevention method is that all employees and operators must be certified and attend an annual training program approved by the minstry. Grandparented operators need to be recertified and new operators need to complete a course at entry-level. The annual training program emphasizes on:

Refreshing skills and requirements
Addressing water safety issues such as emerging pathogens, actions taken in event of emergency
Updating governmental standards and sanitary practices

Another mandatory role of the operator is that they need to report to the Ministry of Enviornment when adverse water quality has been identified and does not meet prescribed health standards. Because of operators' failure to due diligence, this was a major cause of a delayed response to seize the propagation of the outbreak in Walkerton.

REMEMBER: CERTIFICATION AND TRAINING = GOOD PRACTICES IN SYSTEM OPERATION