Drinking Water E. coli summary for 2018
Drinking Water E. coli summary for 2018
Given the major change this is bringing to all drinking water suppliers, a full review of the tests and the results was performed for all the E. coli samples received during 2018 for both compliance reporting and private water customers.
During the full year the three Eurofins water laboratories performed over 24,000 E. coli tests for a range of council and private customers for drinking water standards compliance. Of this number about half were analysed for E. coli by MPN, and about 20% of all the samples were not requested to be tested for total coliforms.
Samples tested for Private Customers and Small Supplies
Of the 4,300 samples in this group, we recorded 323 positive E. coli results or 7.39% of total. These samples are a combination of the many small supplies that are no longer reported via DWO, food manufacturers, or private customers who have unsecured water supplies. Given the source of many private supplies is roof water, it is entirely expected that many of the private samples analysed during the year returned a positive result.
Samples tested for Reticulated Supplies
Almost 20,000 E. coli tests were performed on 299 different reticulated drinking water (formerly WINZ) codes with all these results being uploaded into the new Drinking Water Online (DWO) database. Out of this total, just seven samples were reported as positive for E. coli, and of those seven, four came from the same two sample points. The total reported E. coli positive count works out at 0.04%.
