A Hybrid Heuristic for the p-Median Problem
Journal of Heuristics
Robust optimization of contaminant sensor placement for community water systems
Mathematical Programming: Series A and B
Computational study of large-scale p-Median problems
Mathematical Programming: Series A and B
Design and Evaluation of Physical Protection Systems, Second Edition
Design and Evaluation of Physical Protection Systems, Second Edition
Near-optimal solutions to large-scale facility location problems
Discrete Optimization
EvoCOP'12 Proceedings of the 12th European conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization
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The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead federal agency for the security of drinking water in the United States. The agency is responsible for providing information and technical assistance to the more than 50,000 water utilities across the country. The distributed physical layout of drinking-water utilities makes them inherently vulnerable to contamination incidents caused by terrorists. To counter this threat, the EPA is using operations research to design, test, and deploy contamination warning systems (CWSs) that rapidly detect the presence of contaminants in drinking water. We developed a software tool to optimize the design process, published a decision-making process to assist utilities in applying the tool, pilot-tested the tool on nine large water utilities, and provided training and technical assistance to a larger group of utilities. We formed a collaborative team of industry, academia, and government to critique our approach and share CWS deployment experiences. Our work has demonstrated that a CWS is a cost-effective, timely, and capable method of detecting a broad range of contaminants. Widespread application of these new systems will significantly reduce the risks associated with catastrophic contamination incidents: the median estimated fatalities reduction for the nine utilities already studied is 48 percent; the corresponding economic-impact reduction is over $19 billion. Because of this operations research program, online monitoring programs, such as a CWS, are now the accepted technology for reducing contamination risks in drinking water.