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EPA Provides $1 Million to Gauge Vulnerability of Local Water Supplies

Release Date: 6/20/2002
Contact Information: Bill Dunbar
[email protected]
(206) 553-1203


June 19, 2002
02-20

The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it is providing $115,000 to each of nine Northwest municipalities to assess the vulnerability of local water supplies to terrorist attacks.Seattle, portland, Tacoma, Bellevue, Vancouver, Everett, Eugene, Salem, and Clackamas all recieved the EPA grants.

The grants are part of a $53 milion dollar program to help large drinking water utilities -- those serving over 100,000 people -- around the nation conduct water security planning. Collectively, these large systems provide drinking water to nearly half of Americans served by public water systems. The EPA = s goal is to help make water utilities in the U.S. as safe as possible as soon as possible.

Development of a vulnerability assessment is the highest priority activity under this grant program, since it is the first step in understanding where a utility can be damaged by terrorist attack. Funds may also be used for development of an emergency operations plan, to design security enhancements, or a combination of these efforts.

The EPA has allocated $53 million for security planning at the nation = s large drinking water utilities, while $23 million has been set aside to address the needs of small and medium-sized utilities.

EPA cannot award grants under the Safe Drinking Water Act to privately owned utilities. However, since they serve the general public just as publicly owned systems do, the EPA is working on other funding mechanisms to provide support to these systems.


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Contacts:
EPA/Gene Taylor
800/424-4372 ext 1389
Seattle/Susan Stoltzfus
206/684-7688
Portland/Sarah Bott
503/823-344
Everett /Jim Miller
425/257-8880
Bellevue /Wendy Skony
425/452- 5215
Tacoma/Al Medak
253/502-8210
Vancouver/Pat Easley
360/696-8492
Salem/Sophia Hobet
503/588-6483
Eugene/ Mel Damewood
541/341-1878
Clackamas/Dale Jutila
503/887-2821
Susan Adams-Gunn
503/577-4355