SA Water customers receive safe, clean water in 18-19

SA Health has once again confirmed SA Water customers continue to receive safe, clean drinking water, as shown in the utility’s 2018-19 Annual Report released this week.

Last financial year, as part of its ongoing water quality monitoring program, SA Water collected more than 48,000 samples from its drinking water networks across the state, to analyse for compliance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (2011).

SA Water achieved 100 per cent overall compliance with the guidelines for health-related parameters for metropolitan systems, 99.90 per cent for regional areas, and 99.49 per cent for remote community supplies.

SA Water’s Senior Manager of Water Expertise & Research Dr Daniel Hoefel said the combination of reliable water treatment facilities, expert operators and comprehensive monitoring systems, ensured the protection of public health.

“Anyone who has looked at a natural water body like the River Murray knows it doesn’t look like the clean and clear water that comes from our kitchen taps,” Daniel said.

“Raw water from the River Murray in particular, typically contains suspended dirt, organic material and microorganisms, so it has to go through a number of processes to clean and treat it.

“Whether it be water from River Murray, Gulf St Vincent, bore fields or any of our reservoirs, our highly-skilled people and advanced systems work 24/7 to turn this raw water info the safe, clean product that comes out of your taps every day.”

Dr Hoefel said a downward trend in the number of water quality incidents continued, with a further reduction on the previous year.

“A 41 per cent decrease in water quality incident notifications last financial year can be attributed to a combination of operational improvements and changes to source water quality,” Daniel said.

“There will always be source water challenges, but that’s exactly why our network and water treatment facilities exist.

“The fact that incidents are identified and managed is evidence of our extremely robust drinking water quality management systems and response processes.

“A lot of proactive work by our operational and technical teams goes on behind the scenes to reduce the impact of water quality challenges, but when they do happen, the teams are also there to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“Incidents that were reported last year and successfully managed include those relating to algae primarily resulting from favourable weather conditions for growth, disruption to treatment processes due to operational faults, and management of disinfection by-products created through our normal water treatment process.”

Up-to-date water quality results are published at sawater.com.au where customers can find detailed information about what’s in their water by postcode or suburb.

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