Pollution Control - water

What areas of water quality do Environmental Health Officers look at?

Private Water Supplies: For those who extract their private water supply from boreholes.

Bathing waters: to include swimming pools at leisure centres, Jacuzzi's, hydrotherapy pools.

Mains Water: To include Manufacturers of foods and drinks as well as occasionally looking at domestic supply.

Details

Private Water Supplies

We have a few domestic and commercial private water supplies where we are the responsible authority for monitoring their quality both microbiologically (bacteria) and chemically (e.g. pesticides).

The legislation we use is made under the Water Industry Act 1991 and is called the Private Water Supplies Regulations 1991.

This tells us what the standards of the water should be and how often we have to test the water depending upon its use.

Bathing Waters

We have responsibility for monitoring the quality of water in swimming pools including leisure centres, private health clubs and hotels and Jacuzzi's and paddling pools.

We check that duty holders monitor waters for chemical and for microbiological quality (bacteria) on a regular basis and investigate complaints of poor water quality.

Mains Water Supply

We may occasionally become involved in the testing of domestic mains water in addition to the statutory water undertaker.

In addition, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, who are the national body for ensuring the quality of water, provide an annual publication titled 'How Good is Your Drinking Water'