Chelsea Showcases The New Fastguard Technology At WWEM 2012

Protecting Drinking Water InfrastructureWater abstraction points are vulnerable to spills from farms or factories, and deliberate contamination through terrorism. Early warning monitoring systems are required to alert operators to these contaminants and to changes in key water quality parameters.

A timely response is necessary to prevent contamination and disruption of the public water supply. Chelsea has developed FastGuard to observe the natural trends in water quality parameters and rapidly detect and report anomalies.

FastGuard is a result of a development programme to assess the suitability of the Fast Repetition Rate Fluorescence technology for detecting the effects of hostile contaminants. The ability of water borne algae to photosynthesize, and hence fluoresce, is significantly affected by toxic chemicals.

FastGuard provides an instant response to a range of contaminants including, for example, methylparathion (an organophosphate insecticide), potassium cyanide (which can result in nervous system and respiratory failure) and diuron.

FastGuard measures a time dependent fluorescence signal that arises solely from chlorophyll that is active in photosynthesis - a parameter directly related to the physiology of the algae. Therefore FastGuard is capable of discriminating between chlorophyll that is free in the water column, present in dead algae and present in physiologically active organisms. Importantly, the measurement is independent of algae concentration and changes in ambient light levels.

The response time for FastGuard to detect a deliberate contamination event is a matter of seconds. When combined with historic time series, and other water quality parameters, the likelihood of a false alarm is minimized. This makes FastGuard ideally suited for deployments at critical points in water distribution systems to detect contamination of water pre- and post-treatment.

With FastGuard, Chelsea is addressing the new challenges of the Homeland Security threat with our proven capability in sensors and system design for operations in hostile environments

An early-warning monitoring network can help to ensure abstraction point and water storage protection. The sensors must perform reliably when unattended for extended periods of time, typically many months. Any contamination events must be detected promptly and information passed efficiently to the monitoring station that maybe many miles away. Incorrect reporting of events, and false positives, are unacceptable. FastGuard has been designed to address these operational requirements.

As the design authority for a number of military environmental systems we understand the demands of operational systems and provide sensors with significantly extended calibration intervals, built in test circuitry and redundancy.

We are delighted to be participating in WWEM 2012 (Water, Wastewater & Environmental Monitoring Conference & Workshops) starting Wednesday 7th in Telford. If you plan on attending Dr John Attridge and Justin Dunning would love to see you on Stand No 88. They will also be hosting a workshop on "Innovative fluorescence techniques used to monitor effluent & related environmental parameters" on Wed 8th - there are still places so why not register to attend!