Contaminated drinking water on a U.S. military installation could adversely impact the health of personnel and the mission of the installation. Localized and widespread illness and fatalities resulting from contaminated drinking water could also generate a great deal of media attention, nationally and internationally. Confidence in the military's ability to protect soldiers, their families, and installation personnel from a terrorist attack would be greatly decreased. Since September 11, 2001, Army installation staffs responsible for the safety of community drinking water systems have been searching for guidance on how to develop better drinking water monitoring systems to detect an intentional contamination event. Currently there is no sensory capability to guard against all possible cases of intentional contamination. Until that capability is developed and validated, Army utilities have been advised to focus on more conventional water quality indicators to gage water quality. Advised actions to take have included increasing measurements both in number of locations and frequency for disinfectant residual concentration, pH, turbidity, and coliform bacteria. The presence of many drinking water contaminants affects drinking water aesthetics and can be detected by consumers. In some cases, the consumer's sense of smell rivals the capability of highly expensive analytical instruments by detecting some chemicals at parts per trillion levels. From a health surveillance standpoint, drinking water consumers are the untapped surveillance resource. They can act as "real-time" water quality and safety sensors that provide feedback. These water quality monitors are located at every point in the distribution system at all times. Unfortunately, consumer complaints were not being effectively handled or resolved at most Army installations. The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM) recently provided additional guidance to Army staff outlining a low cost, systematic procedure to improve drinking water surveillance through an effective consumer complaint response and tracking system. The USACHPPM Technical Guide 284, Drinking Water Consumer Complaints: Indicators from Distribution System Sentinels, May 2003, can be obtained from the CHPPM web page http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil.