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2019-20 Drinking Water Quality Report

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2019-20 Drinking Water Quality Report OFFICIAL: Sensitive Contents A message from our Managing Director .....................................................................................2 Ever wondered where your water comes from? .........................................................................4 How we supply water to you .......................................................................................................6 Water quality across our localities ..............................................................................................7 Water Localities Map ..................................................................................................................8 Our water localities .....................................................................................................................9 Treatment process across localities ...........................................................................................11 It matters to you it matters to us ................................................................................................. 16 Water quality results for 2019-20 ................................................................................................19 Drinking water quality standards ................................................................................................. 20 Other water quality standards results .........................................................................................30 Aesthetic water quality results ....................................................................................................50 Regulatory Notifications to the Department of Health and Human Services .............................. 61 Responding to our customers .....................................................................................................63 Glossary/acronyms .....................................................................................................................69 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report 2019–20 │ southeastwater.com.au │ 1 A message from our Managing Director We’re committed to delivering water of the highest quality to support and enhance our communities and environment. From green spaces for recreation to vibrant wetlands or urban gardens, we know that water delivers health and liveability and supports communities by creating spaces to work, live and play. Our purpose, every day at every level of our organisation is to ensure the flow of healthy water to the people who rely on us for health, work, play and recreation. That means delivering the clean water they want, and safely treating the wastewater they don’t – while finding new ways to use, and re-use, water so we don’t waste a drop. I’m proud to present South East Water’s Drinking Water Quality Report 2019–20, which details how we performed against the Safe Drinking Water Act 2003 (the Act), the Safe Drinking Water Regulations 2015 (the Regulations) and the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines 2011 (ADWG) in 2019–20. Delivering healthy water every day We take our responsibility to our customers seriously. We collect over 8,000 water samples every year, which helps us to make sure our drinking water is safe, 365 days a year. Healthy water was more important than ever this year, with a State of Emergency declared across Victoria due to the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19). While much of Melbourne locked down, we continued to deliver essential services. Our water quality and operations specialists maintained quality of supply to ensure our customers had access to clean and safe drinking water. We also participated in the Collaboration on Sewage Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 (ColoSSos) Project (led by Water Research Australia), to help identify the presence of coronavirus fragments in the Australian sewerage network. Overall during this financial year, we saw a slight increase in total customer complaints. This is in part due to the September network fault where air trapped in the network caused white water complaints in Mount Martha. Despite this, we’ve seen a drop in brown water complaints as we continue to operate the network better during bursts and other emergencies. I’m proud to report that we performed extremely well against all testing requirements. We met our drinking water quality standards including our testing for Escherichia coli (E. coli) resulting in no E. coli per 100 millilitres (mL) of drinking water. We also complied with the other standards listed in Schedule 2 of the Regulations, including turbidity and trihalomethanes (a by-product of chlorine disinfection). During the year we successfully completed our surveillance audit, securing our Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) accreditation for the 21st consecutive year. Delivering healthy water for communities This year, we gazetted a new water quality locality, Clyde North, to represent the growing residential population in the area. This new locality was formed by splitting the Cranbourne and Devon Meadows localities. As this area continues to grow, we can be sure our monitoring program reflects the population in this zone. Working with our overseas partners As part of our partnership with the Cambodia Water Authority and three private water utilities, we sent a team of highly regarded professionals, specialising in the fields of Water Operations, Water Quality and Asset Management, to Cambodia to deliver tailored training and technical support for three private Cambodian water operators. The team successfully managed the installation of two analogue-to-digital flow meters, resulting in an increased understanding of network demands and off-peak leak detection strategies. The team also worked with local operators to install a silt net across the source water inlet of a water treatment plant to reduce the concentration of suspended solids from the local river entering the treatment plant. Annual Drinking Water Quality Report 2019–20 │ southeastwater.com.au │ 2 Our specialists took their learnings and delivered workshops and presentations at the Cambodia Water Conference and Vietwater Conference in Vietnam. Both presentations were well received by the accompanying water sectors and the facilitating body, the Australian Water Association (AWA). Building on this success, two young professionals from our partnership program are now working as part of a team with the AWA and the Cambodia Water Authority to establish a ‘Young Water Professionals Network’ in the Cambodia region. Our partnership with the Cambodia Water Authority and private utilities, and our ongoing commitment to our Cambodian partner operators has continued to grow. We’re now holding online meetings and discussions to provide ongoing advice and support that best meets the ever developing needs faced by the water sector in Cambodia. These initiatives demonstrate our commitment to our membership of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) to support the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Delivering water you can count on We know that our customers and community want safe and reliable services, now and always. At its essence, this means clean and quality drinking water, and the safe disposal of wastewater. This report highlights the results from our Water Quality Monitoring Program and explains how we’re working to deliver the best quality water possible, now and always. As we look towards the future, we’re committed to continuing to improve the way we operate our network and deliver safe and healthy water to our customers. Lara Olsen Managing Director October 2020 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report 2019–20 │ southeastwater.com.au │ 3 Ever wondered where your water comes from? We’re lucky in Australia to have safe water – quite literally – running on tap. And in Victoria, we enjoy some of the best drinking water in the world. So what’s involved in getting water that starts as rain, to your taps? There’s more to it than you might think. Here’s a snapshot of the journey in supplying our 1.87 million customers across Melbourne’s south east – residential, commercial and industrial – with safe, high-quality drinking water. It starts north in the Yarra Ranges We purchase your drinking water from Melbourne Water, which harvests, stores, and applies the primary treatment to the water before it arrives in our system. A large proportion of your drinking water comes from protected or uninhabited mountain ash forests high in the Yarra Ranges. Here, more than 157,000 hectares has been reserved for the primary purpose of harvesting water. These catchments were set aside more than 100 years ago to supply high-quality water that requires minimal treatment. Melbourne is one of only five major cities in the world with protected catchments such as these. They’re managed by Melbourne Water and Parks Victoria. From these uppermost catchments, water flows into the Thomson and Upper Yarra reservoirs, where water may be stored for many years before being used. This is a good thing. Time allows sediment from the forests, washed in by the rain, to settle, providing natural purification – in fact, our catchments are so pristine that Melbourne Water doesn’t need to filter sediment out of the water from Cardinia and Silvan Reservoirs. And moves south to the Dandenong Ranges and Cardinia From here, the water transfers to the Silvan and Cardinia reservoirs further south. As it leaves these reservoirs, it’s disinfected to support public health. Chlorine is used to kill potentially harmful micro-organisms and fluoride is added to improve dental
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