AWWA WQTC71398

The Portland Water Bureau (PWB), in Portland, Oregon, is evaluating available on-line water quality monitoring technologies and Event Detection Systems for application in an on-line water quality network in the distribution system. To date, the PWB has installed instrument suites at six locations in its distribution system with a focus on Portland's in-town open finished water reservoirs. The purpose of the monitoring network is to better understand water quality at these critical locations to improve both operations and security until the LT2 requirements for open finished water reservoirs are met. The basic instrument suites include the parameters of total chlorine, pH, turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. One of these locations, the outlet of a 49 MG open finished water reservoir (and the inlet to another 35 MG open reservoir), is being used to evaluate multiple technologies: the Hach Guardian Blue system, and the S::CAN Spectro::lyser (UV-Vis-Spectrometer) with ana::larm software. While this study is ongoing, current results include an analysis of the continuous data quality, online data comparisons to routine grab samples, and lessons learned from installation to regular operation and maintenance of on-line water quality monitoring equipment. Includes 3 references, tables, figures.