Testing

To ensure that our water meets or surpasses federal drinking water standards, the Water District collects and analyses water samples with more frequency than federal regulations require.

Water quality staff:

• Collect about 40,000 water samples and
• Conduct more than 475,000 analyses of those samples
• Monitor water quality in "real time" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• Test for more than 150 regulated and unregulated contaminants

We also conduct extensive quality control sampling of our distribution system. Although this type of sampling is not required by regulation, it's important for identifying the system's potential areas of weakness.

Water sampling stations

We have installed more than 100 permanent sampling stations where samples are taken for required bacteriological and chemical testing. Some of these stations are above ground; others are installed in our customers' meter boxes to ensure that water quality is maintained all the way to the tap.

New pipelines also are tested for bacteriological quality before they are accepted as part of the distribution system.