Regan Murray: Advancing Crucial Clean Water Standards

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, concern grew among government officials and utilities that the nation's drinking water systems could be vulnerable to toxins. Regan Murray, a statistician at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), began working with a team of government scientists to develop a software suite that provides warning signals to rapidly and reliably detect contamination.

"Regan was the mastermind behind this project. She was a real leader who was willing to think outside the box," Jonathan Herrmann of the EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center said.

One of the breakthrough software programs known as CANARY provides a real-time, automated analysis tool that monitors sensor data, recognizes common patterns and identifies abnormalities that may indicate the presence of contaminants. The software has helped to reduce the number of false positive alarms fielded by water utilities and allowed the government to interpret water quality data with great speed.

Another software program known as TEVA-SPOT enables water utilities to identify the best locations in distribution systems to install sensors for speedy detection of contamination.

"Without this software, there is no tool on the market for alerting water utilities of attacks in real time," William Hart of the Sandia National Laboratories said. "There would be no mechanism to measure these attacks."

"This program is incredible in that this software can be used by any water facility, despite the vast differences between them," added Kim Fox of the EPA's Water Infrastructure Protection Division.

The innovative software was used to designed sensor networks for nine large water utilities, and workers at approximately 75 water utilities have been trained to use the technology.

Murray said the effort by her team is part of a broader homeland security approach to protect water supplies, one that includes the utilization of online sensors and computer data collection, public health surveillance programs, cameras and other monitors, and customer complaint surveillance.

The 37-year-old statistician said she has always had a "passion to work on problems." "I wanted to do more meaningful work that directly impacted people's lives," Murray said.

Developing the software and promoting it involved applying scientific, mathematical and people-management skills. To get the job done, Murray coordinated activities among a diverse group of government scientists and academics and developed partnerships with water utility companies.

Murray said the sensor technology represents "a new, more advanced and updated approach for water utilities." Many utility companies were set in their old ways and pushing innovation required establishing credibility to convince people of the need for change.

Of Murray's efforts, security program manager for the American Water Works Association Kevin Morley said, "She worked hard to build and maintain relationships with water utilities to ensure that her software would be a real-world application."

Bringing utility companies on board required being open to suggestsions tied to program implementation. "She was open to feedback from utilities to produce a product that they needed, rather than just a mathematical model," Morley said.

This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Visit www.ourpublicservice.org for more about the organization's work.