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More than 2,000 households in the south west of England are still being told to boil their water before drinking it, a month after a parasite outbreak left dozens of people ill in the region.
A boil notice has been in place since 15 May since traces of cryptosporidium were detected. It originally covered around 40,000 people but was reduced to around 2,000 households the following week after initial testing.
South West Water has today (14 June) announced that it has lifted the boil notice for just 21 more customers in the affected parts of Devon.
South West’s chief customer and digital officer Laura Flowerdew said: “We want to thank our customers, visitors and local businesses for their continued patience while our teams work hard to clean the network and put interventions in place to prevent this from happening again.
“We are pleased to be able to remove the boil water notice for 21 customers along the Hillhead to Boohay main.
“We want to reassure everyone that we have taken all the necessary steps, including rigorous sampling, to be sure their water is safe to use as normal.
“We are working around the clock to lift the boil water notice for the remaining customers in the Hillhead, Upper Brixham and Kingswear area.”
South West Water has now confirmed that a damaged air valve casing on private land was the source of contamination.
That valve has now been removed and replaced and South West said it is carrying out an investigation to determine how it was damaged in the first place.
To rid its network of cryptosporidium, South West engineers have been carrying out various testing and cleaning procedures, including ice pigging, UV treatment and installing specialist microfilters (see graphic below).
Earlier this week, South West Water incident director David Harris said that the boil water notice will be lifted in phases.
He added: “This will allow us to give people access to clean and safe drinking water quicker, where it is safe to do so.”
In its annual accounts, South West parent company Pennon said it had set aside £3.5 million for compensation payments to affected customers.
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