Essex & Suffolk Water Plc supplies drinking water to about 1.7 million people living in Essex, south Norfolk and north Suffolk. Most of the Company's water supplies come from rivers in Suffolk and Essex and from boreholes. The Company has 24 treatment works and distributes water through a network of 8,000 km of pipes and 110 water towers and service reservoirs.
Each year water companies are inspected. The 1995 inspection found that the Company's arrangements for sampling, analysis and reporting were very good and that treatment processes were satisfactory. Progress with improvement programmes was found to be generally satisfactory but deadlines were tight and the Company had difficulty in meeting some of them. Eleven recommendations for improvements in practices were made.
The quality of the water supplied by the Company in 1995 has been generally very good. 98.0% of the 163,967 tests performed by the Company met the standards - the tests were largely made on samples taken from consumers' taps. Of the 2.0% of tests that did not meet the standards some were for coliform bacteria. Each time these bacteria were detected the cause was investigated and any problems identified were corrected. The other significant failures to meet the standards were for iron, trihalomethanes and pesticides. For each of these substances the Company is carrying out an improvement programme.
The graph above shows continued good water quality over the past five years. The Company, as it must, plans to improve the quality even further. It has given legally binding commitments to take steps to remove pesticides and improve its water mains. Traces of pesticides can enter water sources and the Company is installing treatment to remove them. Trihalomethanes can be formed when the water is disinfected at the treatment works and the Company is improving the efficiency of its treatment works to prevent this. The Company is also replacing or has repaired many of its water mains to reduce concentrations of iron. Many of the pesticides and all the trihalomethanes improvements were completed by December 1995. The full effect of the improvements should be seen in the 1996 results. Work on the water mains and some pesticide removal schemes is continuing.
If you want more detailed information about the quality of drinking water in your local area please contact the Company. Their telephone number is 01245 491234. | 
