TERROR ON TAP

BRITAIN'S most vital water supply system is an open target for terrorists. A Sunday Mirror investigator gained access to its pipeline in minutes... and could have poured deadly poison into it.

The huge London Ring Main supplies millions of homes and businesses. The access shaft we penetrated is close to 10 Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence and the Houses of Parliament - yet it has no security.

Our reporters were able to walk to it off the street and could have been terrorists armed with a deadly chemical or biological weapon capable of crippling the capital. Water has long been a target for terrorists - and our water systems are especially at risk because of the Gulf War.

The Iraqis this week tried to poison a water system in Jordon supplying US troops. London's water supply is particularly vulnerable to a terrorist attack as it is fed from a single pipe - the 50-mile- long Thames Water ring main which circles the capital.

All of the city's supply passes through the 2.5 metre (7.5ft) diameter pipe, which is wide enough to drive a black taxi through. A massive 1,300million litres a day, enough to fill the Albert Hall eight times, is pumped through it in both directions to supply five million Londoners.

The pounds 250million pipe is buried 40 metres below the surface, deeper than the Tube, in a layer of clay. Experts say contamination at a single point would spread poison or bacteria to millions of people in hours.

The ring main is supposed to be protected by tight security, especially as Thames Water is on terrorist alert. But Sunday Mirror reporters discovered an open access shaft on a building site in Battersea, South West London, that supplies water to areas like Westminster and Whitehall. Our reporters were waved through the building site entrance without any questions and went to an access shaft leading directly to the ring main.

The shaft was protected only by a small mesh fence and a concrete manhole cover - painted yellow and black to show its importance - which had been removed to reveal an open hole.

One of our reporters was able to climb down a ladder to the bottom of the shaft past pipes carrying water from the ring main to a nearby pumping station. He found the outer surface of the ring main covered in a foot of water which was seeping from an open valve. If he had been a terrorist, he could have poured a poison in to it. The water comes up through the valve to relieve pressure in the ring main - and then goes back into it when the pressure drops. So poison in the overflow water would soon go into the main supply.

David Harper, an environmental engineer specialising in water systems, said: "Chemicals or bacteria would contaminate London in a matter of hours. If a reporter can get in as easily as that then a terrorist could too. The possibilities are frightening. No drilling or knowhow would be required. A more sophisticated attacker could even bore through a pipe leading into the main ring system and introduce a poison through the hole.

"But somebody doing that would obviously have to know what they are doing because they are dealing with a lot of water pressure. Millions of litres of water are being pumped around the ring main every hour."

Deadly agents such as cyanide, cholera and ricin could cause millions of casualties.

A terrorist would have to pour in only a litre of cholera for it to be effective. However, 50 litres of cyanide would be needed - and a massive four tonnes of ricin. In theory, the poisons could be driven on to the site by terrorists posing as workmen - or unnoticed at night.

Once the terrorists were down the shaft, no one could see what they were doing. Andy Oppenheimer, a chemical and bio-weapons expert for the Jane's Defence journal, said: "A bin full of cyanide would cause thousands of people to become incapacitated.

"And there are hundreds of cheap and easily available chemicals that would do the same. Cyanide would not be detected in the system until it was too late because routine testing is for impurities only. And cholera, which has been developed as a chemical weapon by the former Soviet Union and Iraq, would be devastating in small amounts. And although you need a lot of ricin it is easily manufactured and it would take the authorities quite a while before they knew they were being attacked." Other water-born pathogens include typhoid, polio, hepatitis, and diphtheria.

Our investigation also tested the security at the 12 main pumping stations scattered around London. These pump water from the ring main to the surface - and then into houses, offices and shops. They stretch from Kew Bridge in West London, to Park Lane in the centre of London, Stoke Newington in North London and Streatham in South London. The majority are unmanned and offer easy access. At a Thames Water station in Brixton, Sunday Mirror reporters drove on to the site through an open security gate. The gatehouse was unmanned and when our reporters pressed an intercom button it went unanswered.

Although a number of Thames Water employees and contractors were doing maintenance work, our reporters were unchallenged. They were able to get near filtration and storage tanks - which a terrorist could easily pour a contaminant into and then it would reach the main water supply. Freelance water consultant Hugh Allan said: "Anyone who is halfway determined can get into a pumping station. There are only basic security measures. Fundamentally they are only designed to be vandal-resistant, not anti-terrorist. Within a pumping station there are several vulnerable points such as open surfaces, where someone could get access to the water and introduce an agent."

A security expert, who did not want to be named because of business links to Thames Water, said terrorists could also bore holes into the ring main pipe.

He said: "It's an extremely worrying situation. If terrorists can get access to the ring main they could wreak havoc quickly, cheaply and without much risk to themselves. Either they could simply blow up one of the pipes - which would cause massive disruption to the water supply - or they could put a poison in the water. All they would need would be specialised boring equipment to cut a small hole in the pipe. And although a big hole would require quite heavy and bulky boring equipment if you are 100ft underground who is going to hear you?"

John Large, who advises the Government on terrorism, said: "The London Ring Main is the capital's Achilles' heel.

"It has basically concentrated the water supply of London in one big system. North, South, East and West could be contaminated in one fell swoop. Vital water users like hospitals and food factories are not separated from the rest. So if you poured cyanide into the ring main, it would not only poison households, it would get in to the food chain and health system too.

"The sheer volume of water passing through the pipe and its length make it difficult for Thames Water to detect a poison attack. Before an alert had sounded millions of people could have swallowed killer toxins or bacteria.

"Water-born illnesses are devastating. More than five million people die every year in the world from them. Imagine the loss of life from a what a orchestrated, planned attack."

DEADLY DOSAGE

BASED on military research, the amount of poison needed to kill half the population in a 100sq km area is:

CYANIDE - 50 litres. Death would occur in minutes. Symptoms include spasms, breathing difficulty, vomiting, shock, coma.

CHOLERA - One litre. It drains the body of up to 10 litres of water a day with death between 1-5 days. Symptoms include nausea, acute vomiting, headaches, stomach cramps, acute diarrhoea and hypothermia.

RICIN - Four metric tonnes. Death in three days from burning in mouth and throat, vomiting, stomach pains, diarrhoea, thirst, vision loss, convulsions.

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