POWAY - A San Diego County-based company Tuesday announced that two cities have bought their system to protect drinking water from contamination by using fish to monitor toxins in the water supply.

Poway-based Intelligent Automation Corporation says New York and San Francisco have bought the Intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring System, which uses bluegills as biosensors to monitor water supply and identify toxic conditions caused by chemicals.

"As the fish swim, breath and cough, yes, fish cough, their movements are detected by non-contact sensors mounted in the IAC 1090 aquarium," company officials said in a statement. "Should the fish detect toxic conditions, an alarm is triggered and the IAC 1090 is prompted to immediately take a series of water samples."

The system automatically notifies staff by phone or e-mail, allowing authorities to conduct a detailed investigation. The company officials say the system is also being used by the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The fish are more reliable than man-made sensors, according to the company, which says the system was developed with the U.S. Army.

IAC CEO Jeff Goodrich says the need to monitor safe drinking water has increased since Sept. 11, 2001.

"Nature has provided us with an extremely powerful, reliable, and accurate early warning capability unmatched in any known manmade sensor," said Goodrich.