Homeland Security Technologies

Hach Homeland Security Technologies (HST) offers CityGuard™ Winner of the New Product of the Year award for 2010 from Evironmental Protection. CityGuard is a network portal and real-time water distribution and source water monitoring system that optimizes the use of utility dollars while maximizing water quality protection.

By adding CityGuard, water utilities will have a bi-directional monitoring and control system that integrates the data flow from water quality monitoring points strategically located throughout a community’s distribution system. This allows utility personnel to simultaneously view and minimize response time to critical real-time water quality data from any Internet browser at any location.

“The capabilities of CityGuard essentially provide utilities with a ‘virtual command center’ for critical water distribution monitoring and control,” says Katy Craig, director of Hach HST. “This allows for an effective response to minimize the adverse impacts that could result from an event, whether it’s security-related contamination, natural water quality changes in the system such as quality degradation due to water age, or a ruptured water main, cross connection, or an accidental overfeed.”

CityGuard works in concert with proprietary event monitors coupled with Hach GuardianBlue® Early Warning Systems (EWS), Water Distribution Monitoring Panels (WDMPsc), and Source Water Monitoring Panels (SWMP) located throughout the utility system. Each of these systems employs an array of analytical instrumentation combined with advanced interpretive algorithms to provide accurate, data-rich detection/classification networks.

“In the past, utilities could either physically download data from an individual instrument monitor on-site or use a remote service program such as VNC (Virtual Network Computing) to view one distribution monitoring site at a time. With these programs every action took a significant amount of time. Only a single computer could access the data at a given time,” Craig says. “With CityGuard, multiple utility personnel can simultaneously view all event monitors from any Internet browser anywhere. It’s very easy to pull all the data together, giving the utility a comprehensive, immediate and real-time picture.”

On a single screen, utility personnel can simultaneously view the current status of all monitoring points in the distribution system, download data and clear alarms remotely. Users can also easily “drill down” into data from an individual monitoring point in the same manner as if they were physically standing in front of the instrument.

Hach’s patented Event Monitor connected to the Guardian Blue EWS, Water Distribution Monitoring Panel or Source Water Monitoring Panel, calculates a fingerprint of each system event, which is then catalogued, allowing the Event Monitor to “learn” specific systems dynamics. “Each Event Monitor’s ability to learn, combined with utility personnel’s ability to collectively access real-time and historic data through CityGuard, can provide utilities with a deeper, much more accurate understanding of their distribution system performance,” Craig says. “This, in turn, can allow them to streamline operations, reduce costs and labor, and boost efficiency – all while further strengthening public health protection.”

CityGuard allows utilities to:

• View the status of multiple distribution monitoring points at a glance.
• Have bi-directional control of multiple Event Monitors from any location.
• Save time and costs associated with travel to remote monitoring sites.
• Drill down, view, and analyze water quality data from multiple distribution monitoring points from a single access point.
• Maximize the value of water distribution monitoring, source water monitoring and drinking water security programs.

Should an event occur, the information you obtain from CityGuard will help you…

• Visualize the affected area
• Accelerate public health response
• Minimize the impact to human populations
• Reduce damage to infrastructure
• Reduce the cost of remediation
• Restore water service more quickly

CityGuard is the latest innovation from Hach Homeland Security Technologies. Formed by Hach Company in 2002 as a separate research and development division, Hach HST focuses on the development of innovative and breakthrough technologies that can be used to detect contamination events, terrorist activity, and improve general operational control in water. The Hach GuardianBlue EWS, which analyzes drinking water to guard against contamination, is the first and only early warning system for drinking water certified and designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an approved product for security. GuardianBlue systems were intensively used for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

On-line monitoring systems used to survey our water supply networks are becoming more ubiquitous. After 2001, the inducement of water security was added to water quality as a motivating factor for monitoring. These twin drivers have led to a rapid deployment of monitoring schemes for all aspects of the water supply network.

These systems consist of a means of measuring basic on-line water quality parameters – often coupled with interpretive algorithms for event detection and classification. These systems facilitate an unprecedented view of the basic water quality anywhere in the network.

One deficiency in these systems derives from their widespread geographic deployment. Monitoring site access for instrument verification, data acquisition and other housekeeping and emergency response tasks can become daunting when it is understood that a system may be comprised of tens or even hundred of monitoring nodes. This, combined with the expediency of being able to view the network as a whole makes the need for a hierarchical centralized system of command and control a must.

The solution described here consists of communication and data handling software that will give utilities a bi-directional monitoring and control system that integrates the data flow from water quality monitoring points strategically located throughout a water supply network. This gives utility personnel the ability to simultaneously view and minimize response time to critical water quality data anomalies from any Internet browser at any location.

The capabilities of the system provide utilities with a virtual command center, CityGuard, for water distribution monitoring and source water monitoring and control from a location or locations of their choice. This allows for effective response and coordination of multiple sites and functions within the organization. In the past, utilities could either physically download data from an individual instrument monitor or use a remote service to view one distribution-monitoring site at a time. Every action took a significant amount of time. Only a single computer could access the data. With the new system, multiple utility personnel can simultaneously view all the data, giving the utility a comprehensive, immediate and real-time picture. On a single screen, utility personnel can view the current status of all monitoring points in the network; download data and clear alarms remotely. Users can easily “drill down” into data from an individual monitoring point in the same manner as if they were physically standing at the site. The underlying algorithms at the monitoring sites ability to calculate a fingerprint of a water quality event and its ability to learn, combined with utility personnel’s ability to access real-time and historic data, can provide utilities with a deeper understanding of their network’s performance. This in turn can allow them to streamline operations, reduce costs and labor, and boost efficiency – all while further strengthening public health protection.