City will use fleas to test water for toxins dumped by terrorists
ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) -- Much as coal miners used canaries to detect toxic gases in mines, the city will use a type of water flea to test reservoirs for toxins that could be dumped by terrorists.
The Altoona City Authority said it will use Daphnia water fleas to check water in the reservoirs.
The authority recently agreed to pay $4,450 for a Kingwood Diagnostics Q-Tox startup kit and about $10,200 annually to maintain the system.
The authority's current testing looks for mostly organic compounds that can leach into its 13 reservoirs but does not check for poisons, such as cyanide, ricin or soman.
Use of the tiny brownish crustaceans, which are hypersensitive to poisons, will take care of that.
To test the water, examiners add sugar that is tagged with a fluorescent marker that does not glow while connected to the sugar.
In unpoisoned water, the fleas digest the sugar and break the marker away, and the glow can then be seen within the translucent bodies of the animals.
In poisoned water, however, Daphnia grow sick, can't digest the sugar and will not glow.
Officials say the system is not foolproof, since normal substances in the water can interfere with the results.
However, the system also gives municipalities a better picture of the chemical profile of the water, company president Carlos Murawczyk said.
Altoona plans to test its water weekly and will also conduct emergency tests.
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