https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Lunev

Watch the Water Lunev : Poisoning of Potomac River

According to Lunev, a probable scenario in the event of war would have been poisoning the Potomac River with chemical or biological weapons, "targeting the residents of Washington, D.C."[1] He also considered it "likely" that GRU operatives placed "poison supplies near the tributaries to major US reservoirs."[9] These allegations have been confirmed by former SVR officer Kouzminov [10] who was responsible for transporting pathogens from around the world for Russian program of biological weapons in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. He described a variety of biological warfare acts that would be carried out on the order of the Russian President in the event of hostilities, including poisoning public drinking-water supplies and food processing plants.[11]

Water and terrorism Peter H. Gleick

Chemical and biological attacks on water may not be as easy as often portrayed. In order to be effective as a tool of water-related terrorism, a chemical or biological weapon must be:

.(Weaponized: it must be produced and disseminated in quantities sufficient to have the intended effect.

.(Appropriate for water dissemination: it must be viable, dissolvable, stable and transportable in water.

.(Infectious, virulent or toxic: it must be effective at causing illness or death, with no widespread immunity in the target population.

.(Effective over time and treatment: it must maintain its effectiveness in water long enough to reach and affect humans and it must not be negated by standard water treatment systems likely to be in place.

Most biological pathogens cannot survive in water and most chemicals require very large volumes to contaminate a water system to any significant degree. Many pathogens and chemicals are vulnerable to the kinds of water treatment used to make it potable for human use. Indeed, the whole purpose of municipal water systems is to destroy biological pathogens and reduce the concentration of harmful chemicals through chlorination, filtration, ultraviolet radiation, ozonation and many other common treatment approaches. Many contaminants are also broken down over time by sunlight and other natural processes. Most infrastructure has built-in redundancy that reduces vulnerability to physical attacks.

Because of these safeguards, one early commentator noted: “it is a myth that one can accomplish [mass destruction] by tossing a small quantity of a ‘super-toxin’ into the water supply…it would be virtually impossible to poison a large water supply: hydrolysis, chlorination and the required quantity of the toxin are the inhibiting factors” (Kupperman & Trent, 1979).

It is important to note, however, that terrorist attacks that fail to kill or injure large numbers of people may still have important political repercussions by affecting public perception, reducing confidence in institutions and forcing inappropriate political responses. Society reacts differently to natural and

human-caused disasters: we often accept large casualties from natural disasters with a degree of sanguinity not matched by our response to intentional acts of violence (Wardlaw, 1989).

Terrorism destroys our sense of safety and normality and introduces new and often substantial stress and uncertainty in individuals and communities (Ursano et al., 2003)

http:// www2.pacinst.org/reports/water_terrorism.pdf