# Poison in water supply **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 15, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399 "2013-05-15T13:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/1 "2013-05-15T13:36:00Z")
I’m writing this because of a recent news article. Suspected terrorists caught near the Quabbin at midnight. I’m not interested in learning any details or secret formulas since I"m not a Terrorist. Google: Trespassing Quabbin How many gallons would it take to poison 1 Trillion gallons of drinking water to disable the people who drink it? Assuming no filtering or awareness. What would be the most effective category or type of poison? If the goal is to minimize the quantity needed to transport? I don’t need the details. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/2 "2013-05-15T14:51:00Z")
[Call Woody!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6THteoyEWHo) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/3 "2013-05-15T15:04:58Z")
> [@sbright33](#): > > I’m writing this because of a recent news article. Suspected terrorists caught near the Quabbin at midnight. I’m not interested in learning any details or secret formulas since I"m not a Terrorist. But if you were a terrorist, would you tell us? ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/4 "2013-05-15T15:17:37Z")
If I was would I be asking here? ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/5 "2013-05-15T15:33:47Z")
I figure you’d need about 250 million gallons of VX or Novichock-5. You’d have to put it in the reservoir without being noticed. It would cost over a trillion dollars? What are the authorities worried about near the Quabbin Reservoir? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/6 "2013-05-15T15:39:27Z")
A more effective way might be to use a pump to go right from your pipe back into the water supply, a much smaller group would be affected but less poison would be needed and the terrorists could easily move from place to place creating a lot of fear. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/7 "2013-05-15T15:48:59Z")
Back in the 70s I was tangentially involved in a study by the Army into how easy it would be to poison the Anchorage, Alaska water supply. The solution (heh) we came up with involved hallucinogens. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/8 "2013-05-15T16:00:30Z")
No cites, but I’ve read various studies of the “poisoning a reservoir” scenario, and they all concluded that you’d need such a massive amount of poison that it would be impractical. I wondered whether something like polonium could be used, because that has an absolutely minuscule lethal dose. But it’s also rather expensive, and not available in large quantities, so unless you’re a evil billionaire you can probably forget it. ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/9 "2013-05-15T16:01:42Z")
You’d still need 25,000 huge tanker trucks of LSD to disable someone. That’s one every minute for 17 days. Without being detected. A smaller reservoir would be easier. Interesting idea Honeybadger! You could affect your neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/10 "2013-05-15T16:06:48Z")
You’d only need 25 tanker trucks of Polonium to hurt water drinkers. That much doesn’t even exist on our planets surface. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/11 "2013-05-15T16:10:13Z")
> [@sbright33](#): > > I’m writing this because of a recent news article. Suspected terrorists caught near the Quabbin at midnight. That seems a bit alarmist, or at least very premature. Dumb-ass college kids is more probable. Hanging out at the various reservoirs is a Pioneer Valley tradition. Although yeah, if your group is composed entirely of foreign students, you’re definitely adding an extra layer of dumb-ass when you trespass at a reservoir. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/12 "2013-05-15T16:24:43Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Back in the 70s I was tangentially involved in a study by the Army into how easy it would be to poison the Anchorage, Alaska water supply. The solution (heh) we came up with involved hallucinogens. That would be kind of problematic, if you are talking about LSD, because you would have to get the chlorine out of the water first. ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/13 "2013-05-15T16:48:29Z")
Your answer is correct if you assume about 1 dose per gallon [http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/112407-LSD-and-Tap-Water](http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/112407-LSD-and-Tap-Water) But it is not true at much higher concentrations like if you put it in a spoon of tap water. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/14 "2013-05-15T16:55:06Z")
It isn’t all that difficult to infect Quabbin Reservoir. All it takes is a rogue army officer, a Ripley-infected subordinate, and a mutated byrus that can withstand cold temperatures… ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/15 "2013-05-15T17:05:01Z")
> [@For You](#): > > That would be kind of problematic, if you are talking about LSD, because you would have to get the chlorine out of the water first. LSD isn’t water-soluble anyway. The idea was to introduce enough to incapacitate emergency services. We came to the same conclusion you did: not practical. ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/16 "2013-05-15T17:35:34Z")
It is water soluble. Both in your body, and the water supply. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/17 "2013-05-15T18:21:06Z")
We went another direction anyway. Guess we were misinformed as to the chemical structure. We assumed it was fat-soluble, not water-soluble. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/18 "2013-05-16T21:39:43Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > That seems a bit alarmist, or at least very premature. Dumb-ass college kids is more probable. Hanging out at the various reservoirs is a Pioneer Valley tradition. Although yeah, if your group is composed entirely of foreign students, you’re definitely adding an extra layer of dumb-ass when you trespass at a reservoir. Double dumb-ass on them? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/19 "2013-05-16T21:50:55Z")
Remember, terrorism is about _psychology_, not actual effects. A small matter that gets blown up way out of proportion by the media which instills fears into millions. So you’d just have to pour a small amount of Something Bad into the water, alert the media and you win. It doesn’t matter that no one gets poisoned or anything. (The only weapon against terrorism that works is keeping cool.) ---
**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poison-in-water-supply/658399/20 "2013-05-20T22:03:22Z")
You think if you poured 100 gallons into a Trillion they’d detect it? Not a chance. You’d have to get caught to make the news. Or leave a huge barrel behind labeled Poison like on Tom and Jerry. No need to have any actual poison, just some sticky residue. It would take 250,000 huge truck loads to hurt someone. 2,000 big trucks for the most sensitive instruments to detect. Why bother detecting? Just look for 2000 trucks!