contaminated water supplys?

With the recent bombings in London, Scotland yard has expressed fears of national water supplys being contaminated with chemicals by terrorists.

This is going to be a real serious concern, even though it says that these areas are well protected and measures have been taken to improve security, it also states in one article in a newspaper i was reading, that Police fear that terrorist cells could have already placed members into staff positions a few years back, these people having worked their way up to positions of responsibility?

what i find worrying is that if Scotland yard has expressed concern over this new fear, going off the realization that attacks on London and the Uk have long since been feared by our goverment......is this fear of chemical contamination going to happen?

Any of you more scientific people here have any idea what chemicals they would use and how much of it they would need to cause a serious effect on water supplys?......

Regards.

It seems that all recent "terrorist" attacks have been carried out to shock and outrage the public, and to bolster the governments desire to introduce biometric ID's and increase police powers as a side effect

I find it highly unlikely that there are any terrorists out there with the logistic capabilities to carry out a major contamination of our water supplies. If the police had any reason to believe that there are sleepers at high (or any) levels of our utility services then surely they, assisted my MI5, would have vetted al those people long ago.

This just seems like another scarey story from unamed sources

Britain has a high percentage of Muslims, I'd think we are more vulnerable. Plutonium would be the deadliest form of attack. Kind of gives a whole new perspective on dirty bomb.

We've also got high percentage of Afro-Caribbeans, Eastern Europeans etc... etc...
Why single out Muslims as the persistent bogeymen. Hell, why not broaden the scope to our own black-ops artists who'd have an easier time getting their hands on the materials.

I trust our own government and the establishment behind them less than I'd trust most Muslims

That was a good point, it seems we all have a "point the finger at a people first" instead of an entity attitude. I guess we are in denial and don't want to believe our government would do something to harm the people
what am I saying? Governments are concerned with power on a global basis and seem relatively unconcerned with the individual. (good of the many outweighing the good of the one attitude... but I know I don't fit into their many accounting.)
Sad thing is a friend is talking of leaving America but I keep telling him it's the same everywhere, no place is immune.

It's not easy to contaminate a water supply to the point where it would present a serious threat.

Basic faq here

Contamination of a reservoir with a biological agent would be unlikely to produce a large risk to public health, simply because of the dilution effect. These reservoirs contain hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of gallons of water. Very simply, it would take a massive amount of contaminant to produce a viable threat at this stage; if the contaminant agents were to be introduced at this point they are likely to be detected and unlikely to survive the chlorination process....

However, if the point of contamination is after a treatment facility the likelihood of success is much greater. Again though, this would be subject to dilution, which would greatly lessen the effects.

To be honest, I think we'd be subject to a far greater risk from hacking into the computers controlling the water systems....that would be something to worry about.

It would appear to be much easier for a terrorist to obtain access to a storage facility holding bottled water, for example, and contaminating the products therein.

[edit on 26-7-2005 by Tinkleflower]