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Reports on water companies
International comparisons - water quality: results for 2006-07 Key conclusion
In the UK, drinking water standards and monitoring requirements are set down in the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations. Water companies must demonstrate compliance with prescribed concentration values for European and national microbiological and chemical parameters. Since 2004, the UK drinking water regulators have assessed compliance with drinking water standards based on water supply zones. Table 10 shows the percentage mean zonal compliance for the UK water sectors between 2004 and 2006. This measure covers 40 parameters with mandatory national or European standards. Table 11 compares the percentage mean zonal compliance in 2006 for selected parameters, chosen because of their importance to customers. Both these tables show that the quality of water supplied to consumers' taps is high, and has improved across the UK. Companies in England and Wales continue to maintain lower percentage failures than the water suppliers in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The distribution maintenance index, also called OPI (TIM), is used by the UK drinking water regulators to monitor the performance of the distribution system. This is based on the mean zonal compliance of turbidity, iron and manganese, the three parameters associated with discoloured water. Figure 5 shows performance against this index for 2004-06. It can be seen that England and Wales continue to outperform Scotland and Northern Ireland on this measure. However, Scottish Water had the largest improvement in 2006-07. VEWIN reports water quality in the Netherlands against an index showing compliance with the legal water quality standards set out in their national Water Act. These standards include parameters for public health, technical operation and customer perception. The highest possible score is zero, and water that just meets minimum standards receives a score of one. Water quality in the country is high, with companies achieving an average score of 0.03. The Australian 'National Performance Report' includes an indicator for microbiological compliance. All but one of the Australian companies compared achieved 100% compliance with the requirements of their particular jurisdiction in 2006-07. Yarra Valley Water achieved compliance for 99.7% of its population. We can infer from this that drinking water quality in Australia is also high, but the data is too limited to allow meaningful comparison with England and Wales.  |
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Water quality |
Drinking water quality - results for 2006-07
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