Yorkshire Water Services Limited supplies drinking water to more than 4.4 million people in North, West and South Yorkshire and part of Humberside. Approximately half of the supplies come from reservoirs. The remainder comes in almost equal proportions from rivers and from boreholes and springs. The Company has 138 treatment works and distributes water through a network of 27,600km of pipes and 395 service reservoirs. The Company resorted to a number of emergency measures to maintain supplies during the drought period, including returning a small number of previously abandoned works to service and tankering raw water to various works for treatment.


Each year water companies are inspected. The 1995 inspection found that the Company's arrangements for sampling, analysis and reporting were generally very good and that treatment processes were generally satisfactory. Progress with improvement programmes was generally satisfactory, also some deadlines are tight. Two schemes were delayed, one for reasons beyond the Company's control and the other one because of poor management control. Twelve recommendations for improvements in practices were made.


The quality of water supplied by the Company has generally been very good with 99.7% of the 310,083 tests meeting the standards - the tests were largely made on samples taken from consumers' taps. Of the 0.3% 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. In some cases the Inspectorate is obtaining a commitment from the Company to carry out further investigations. Other significant failures to meet the standards were for iron, lead, THM's, PAH and pesticides. For each of these substances the Company is carrying out an improvement programme.


The graph above shows the improvement in the 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. The Company improvement programmes associated with THM's and lead were completed by the end of 1995. The Company has installed additional treatment at a number of sites to reduce the tendency of the water to pick up lead from consumers' lead pipes. The benefits of this will become apparent during 1996. Iron and PAH arise from old water mains and the Company is replacing or repairing these. Most of these improvements will be complete by December 1997, but work on the water mains will extend beyond this date.


If you want more detailed information about water quality in your local area please contact the Company. Their customer call line telephone number is 0345 828888.

     


The Drinking Water Inspectorate checks that your drinking water is properly tested and that action is taken to put right breaches of standards. The results of the tests given overleaf have been carefully audited and give an accurate picture of the quality of water supplied by the company.

Drinking water standards in England and Wales include all those in the European Community Directive on drinking water and are mainly based on levels recommended by the World Health Organisation. Those of significance to health have generally been set with a wide safety margin. The occasional breaches of the standards which have happened do not mean the water was not suitable for drinking.

The Inspectorate assesses each breach of the standards and if necessary requires water companies to give legally binding undertakings to carry out improvements.

The summary of the 1995 Report gives the results of tests for England and Wales as a whole and sets out in more detail how the quality of your drinking water is checked and the significance of each of the listed substances. Printed copies of each Water Company Summary, and the Summary of the 1995 Report are available from :

The Drinking Water Inspectorate
Room B155
Romney House
43 Marsham Street
London SW1P 3PY

Telephone: 0171 276 8808/8666

     
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Reviewed 1 October 1996