Information technology: toward strategic synthesis

Last year, Seattle Public Utilities was faced with a water quality crisis: not a life-threatening situation, but one of those serious challenges that causes us from time to time to re-examine our abilities and our processes. Sodium hypochlorite, a strong breach solution used for disinfection, backsiphoned into reservoir outlet water creating high concentrations of chlorine in water delivered to several hundred customers. Before we were aware of the problem, dozens of customers began calling in to our control centre, complaining of taste and odour problems. We were able to islolate the problem quickly and flush the highly chlorinated water from our water system, but the loss of confidence among some of our customers will take much longer to repair.