South West Water Services Limited supplies drinking water to about 1.5 million people resident in Cornwall and most of Devon. About 90% of the water comes from rivers and reservoirs while the remainder comes from boreholes. The Company has 48 treatment works and distributes water through a network of over 15,000 km of pipes and 368 service reservoirs.
Each year water companies are inspected. The 1995 inspection found that the Company's arrangements for sampling, analysis and reporting were generally good and that treatment processes were generally satisfactory. Progress with improvement programmes was found to be satisfactory. Thirty-five recommendations for improvements in practices were made.
The quality of the water supplied by the Company in 1995 has been generally very good. 99.6% of the 111,562 tests performed by the Company met the standards - the tests were largely made on samples taken from consumers' taps. Of the 0.4% of tests that did not meet the standards some were for coliform bacteria. When these bacteria were detected, the cause was investigated and corrected. The only other significant failures to meet the standards were for iron and PAH. For each of these substances the Company is carrying out an improvement programme.
The graph above shows the continued good water quality over the past five years. The Company, as it must, plans to improve the quality even further. Iron and PAH arise from old water mains and the Company is continuing with the replacement or repair of these.
If you want more detailed information about the quality of drinking water in your local area please contact the Company. Their telephone number is 01392 446688.. | 
