Alastair--The following is from the American Water Works Association web site. Apparently the industry association believes there is some cause for concern with embedded chips and valves. You may want to look at the site and associated links "embedded" in the text of the following discussion. Please let us know what you think. The integrity of sanitary systems has been a concern of mine.
awwa.org
Year 2000 - The Millennium Bug
What Should Water Utilities Be Doing To Protect Their Public?
By now, nearly everyone has heard of the Year 2000, or Y2K, problem. This issue stems from the old computer programming practice of using only the last two digits of the year in date information to save space in memory. The 19 (as in 1998) was just assumed and not stored as part of the date. As a consequence, when the date January 1, 2000, appears, those programs that use the 2-digit year will interpret the 00 from 2000 as 1900. Depending on the operation being performed, this can create significant problems, such as erroneous computations and the proliferation of bad data throughout an organization's databases.
The problem is often identified with the computer hardware and software (Information Technology, or IT) of an organization. However, for water utilities, and probably for many other systems, a much larger problem lies sleeping in the multitude of process controllers, data loggers, and automated operating systems scattered throughout the water utility. Even a very small water system that can get by on one or two PCs is likely to be overwhelmed by the number of embedded systems (ES) that may be found in their system. Cars and trucks are said to have up to 50 processors throughout the vehicle. A package plant has flow controllers, chemical pacing controllers, level sensors, chemical monitors with feedback loops, etc. Each of these is operated by an embedded computer chip that likely has a real time processor, or clock, included. If these systems are not capable of handling the date January 1, 2000, the system may fail - and the failure mode may shut the plant down, or could cause unsafe water to be distributed to the system. Likewise, the distribution system is controlled by automatic valves, level or pressure sensors, etc., and all of these systems are potential sources of failure.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR WATER UTILITIES
Ian Lisk, on his WaterOnLine internet page, paints a scenario of failure in a community water and wastewater system. While he admits this scenario may be far fetched, and many utilities are working to meet the demands of Y2K, it is not entirely out of the question. And time is now very short. AMWA provides a good set of references to web pages that may be helpful to a utility just now beginning to meet this issue. They also provide a clock that lets you know just how many (or how few) days you have until the issue catches up with you. If your race has just started, you better run fast.
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