Water supply terrorism involves acts of sabotage to a water supply system, through chemical or biological warfare or infrastructural sabotage. Throughout military history and the history of terrorism, water supply attacks have been perpetrated by political groups, intending to scare, cause death, or drought.
In 1984, members of the Rajneeshee religious cult contaminated a city water supply tank in The Dalles, Oregon, using Salmonella and infected 750 people. [1]
In 1992 The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) put lethal concentrations of potassium cyanide in the water tanks of a Turkish Air Force compound in Istanbul.
In 2000, workers at the Cellatex chemical plant in northern France dumped 5000 liters of sulfuric acid into a tributary of the Meuse River when they were denied workers’ benefits. [1]
In 2000, Queensland police arrested a man for using a computer and a radio transmitter to take control of the Maroochy Shire wastewater system and release sewage into parks, rivers and property.
In 2024 there were two cases of possible drinking water sabotage at German army bases and one at the municipality of Mechernich where a local water treatment plant supplies water to a local army base.
Despite the fact that it is impractical and very unlikely to produce any effect at large scale, during the 1960s a great deal of attention was paid to the notion that counter-culture figures could intoxicate a whole city by putting a small dose of LSD in the water supply.
On 19 March 1966 London Life ran an interview claiming that anyone could take control of London in under eight hours by putting 'acid' in the water system. Dr Donald Johnson claimed: "It is quite feasible that LSD could be used to take over a city or even a country. I agree if it were put into reservoirs, it would disable people sufficiently for an enemy to take control." [2]
In November 1966 Vue magazine ran "Why They Had to Outlaw LSD", in which writer WH Carr claimed that "[A] few ounces of it, dumped in the water supply of a major city, could shake up millions." [2]
Counter-culture icon Abbie Hoffman threatened to put LSD in Chicago's water-supply to protest the Vietnam War during the Democratic convention. [3]
In 1999, a bomb destroyed the main water pipeline in Lusaka, Zambia, cutting off water for 1.1 million people in the city.
In 2001, water flow to Kumanovo (population 100,000) was cut off for 12 days in conflict between ethnic Albanians and Macedonian forces. [1]
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) detonated a bomb inside a tunnel in the Chingaza Dam, which provides most of Bogotá’s water. [1]
Four incendiary devices were found in the pumping station of a Michigan water-bottling plant. The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility, accusing Ice Mountain Water Company of stealing water for profit.
In 2003 Jordanian authorities arrested Iraqi agents in connection with a failed plot to poison the water supply that serves American troops in the eastern Jordanian desert near the border with Iraq.
In 2006 Tamil Tiger rebels cut the water supply to government-held villages in northeastern Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan government forces then launched attacks on the reservoir, declaring the Tamil actions to be terrorism.
The draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes occurred in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. Formerly covering an area of around 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi), the main sub-marshes, the Hawizeh, Central, and Hammar Marshes were all drained at different times for different reasons. Initial draining of the Central Marshes was intended to reclaim land for agriculture but later all three marshes became a tool of war and revenge.
Many international organizations such as the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the International Wildfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau, and Middle East Watch have described the draining as a political attempt to force the Ma'dan people out of the area through water diversion tactics. [4]
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are organochlorine compounds with the formula C12H10−xClx; they were once widely used in the manufacture of carbonless copy paper, as heat transfer fluids, and as dielectric and coolant fluids for electrical equipment. They are highly toxic and carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer electronic products, whose production was banned internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.
The Tigris–Euphrates river system is a large river system in Western Asia that flows into the Persian Gulf. Its primary rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates, along with smaller tributaries.
Water purification is the process of removing undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants, suspended solids, and gases from water. The goal is to produce water that is fit for specific purposes. Most water is purified and disinfected for human consumption, but water purification may also be carried out for a variety of other purposes, including medical, pharmacological, chemical, and industrial applications. The history of water purification includes a wide variety of methods. The methods used include physical processes such as filtration, sedimentation, and distillation; biological processes such as slow sand filters or biologically active carbon; chemical processes such as flocculation and chlorination; and the use of electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light.
The Marsh Arabs, also referred to as Ahwaris, the Maʻdān or Shroog —the latter two often considered derogatory in the present day—are Arab inhabitants of the Mesopotamian marshlands in the modern-day south Iraq, as well as in the Hawizeh Marshes straddling the Iraq-Iran border.
A diversion dam is a dam that diverts all or a portion of the flow of a river from its natural course. Diversion dams do not generally impound water in a reservoir; instead, the water is diverted into an artificial water course or canal, which may be used for irrigation or return to the river after passing through hydroelectric generators, flow into a different river or be itself dammed forming an onground or groundwater reservoir or a storm drain.
The Cache la Poudre River, also known as the Poudre River, is a river in the state of Colorado in the United States.
Bleed air in aerospace engineering is compressed air taken from the compressor stage of a gas turbine, upstream of its fuel-burning sections. Automatic air supply and cabin pressure controller (ASCPC) valves bleed air from low or high stage engine compressor sections; low stage air is used during high power setting operation, and high stage air is used during descent and other low power setting operations. Bleed air from that system can be utilized for internal cooling of the engine, cross-starting another engine, engine and airframe anti-icing, cabin pressurization, pneumatic actuators, air-driven motors, pressurizing the hydraulic reservoir, and waste and water storage tanks. Some engine maintenance manuals refer to such systems as "customer bleed air".
Well poisoning is the act of malicious manipulation of potable water resources in order to cause illness or death, or to deny an opponent access to fresh water resources.
The Klamath Project is a water-management project developed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation to supply farmers with irrigation water and farmland in the Klamath Basin. The project also supplies water to the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. The project was one of the first to be developed by the Reclamation Service, which later became the Bureau of Reclamation.
The water resources of China are affected by both severe water shortages and severe growing population and rapid economic development as well as lax environmental oversight have increased in a large scale the water demand and pollution. China has responded by measures such as rapidly building out the water infrastructure and increasing regulation as well as exploring a number of further technological solutions.
The Kyiv Reservoir, locally the Kyiv Sea, is a large water reservoir located on the Dnieper River in Ukraine. Named after the city of Kyiv, which lies to the south, it covers an area of 922 square kilometres (356 sq mi) within the Kyiv Oblast. The reservoir filled in 1964–1966 after the dam for the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant was built at Vyshhorod. The reservoir is mainly used for hydroelectricity generation, industrial and public consumption, and irrigation.
The Arkell Spring Grounds is an aquifer-fed spring located in Arkell, Ontario, Canada. The spring is owned by the city of Guelph and provides local residents with the majority of their drinking water.
The Mesopotamian Marshes, also known as the Iraqi Marshes, are a wetland area located in Southern Iraq and southwestern Iran as well as partially in northern Kuwait. The marshes are primarily located on the floodplains of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers bound by the cities of Basra, Nasiriyah, Amarah and a portion of southwestern Iran and northern Kuwait. Historically the marshlands, mainly composed of the separate but adjacent Central, Hawizeh and Hammar Marshes, used to be the largest wetland ecosystem of Western Eurasia. The unique wetland landscape is home to the Marsh people, who have developed a unique culture tightly coupled to the landscape – harvesting reeds and rice, fishing, and herding water buffalo.
The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, also known as Central Park Reservoir, is a decommissioned reservoir in Central Park in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, stretching from 86th to 96th Streets. It covers 106 acres (43 ha) and holds over 1 billion US gal (3.8 million m3) of water.
Water conflict typically refers to violence or disputes associated with access to, or control of, water resources, or the use of water or water systems as weapons or casualties of conflicts. The term water war is colloquially used in media for some disputes over water, and often is more limited to describing a conflict between countries, states, or groups over the rights to access water resources. The United Nations recognizes that water disputes result from opposing interests of water users, public or private. A wide range of water conflicts appear throughout history, though they are rarely traditional wars waged over water alone. Instead, water has long been a source of tension and one of the causes for conflicts. Water conflicts arise for several reasons, including territorial disputes, a fight for resources, and strategic advantage.
The Mesopotamian Marshes were drained in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. The marshes formerly covered an area of around 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi). The main sub-marshes, the Hawizeh, Central, and Hammar marshes, were drained at different times for different reasons.
Interbasin transfer or transbasin diversion are terms used to describe man-made conveyance schemes which move water from one river basin where it is available, to another basin where water is less available or could be utilized better for human development. The purpose of such water resource engineering schemes can be to alleviate water shortages in the receiving basin, to generate electricity, or both. Rarely, as in the case of the Glory River which diverted water from the Tigris to Euphrates River in modern Iraq, interbasin transfers have been undertaken for political purposes. While ancient water supply examples exist, the first modern developments were undertaken in the 19th century in Australia, India and the United States, feeding large cities such as Denver and Los Angeles. Since the 20th century many more similar projects have followed in other countries, including Israel and China, and contributions to the Green Revolution in India and hydropower development in Canada.
The 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning, known in French as Le Pain Maudit, took place on 15 August 1951, in the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit in Southern France. More than 250 people were involved, including 50 people interned in asylums, and there were seven deaths. A foodborne illness was suspected; among these it was originally believed to be a case of "cursed bread".
Keswick Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Sacramento River about 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Redding, California. Part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project, the dam is 157 feet (48 m) high and impounds the Keswick Reservoir, which has a capacity of 23,800 acre⋅ft (29,400,000 m3). The dam's power plant has three turbines with a generating capacity of 117 megawatts (MW), which, in 1992, was uprated from its original 75 MW. The dam and reservoir serve as an afterbay to regulate peaking power releases from the Shasta Dam upstream.
The Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group chemical spill was a severe chemical spill that occurred in Shanxi Province, China during 2012–13. More than 39 tons of anilines leaked from a loose drainage valve at a plant owned by Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group in the Shanxi city of Changzhi. This chemical spill contaminated the Zhuozhang River which is the source of drinking water for more than one million people, and so caused a water crisis in the downstream City of Handan, Hebei Province.