Industry Update - Release of Updated Australian Drinking Water Guidelines

There have been some key Water Industry updates which Ecosafe International has provided a brief summary of below.

?Legislative Updates

Australian Drinking Water Guidelines Version 3.8

There has been a significant update to the ADWG with the release of version 3.8 with the inclusion of health-based targets (HBTs) into the Framework for Managing Drinking Water Quality. This change in the process for assessing risks to water quality from enteric pathogens has resulted in a considerable reworking of Chapter 5 of ADWG Microbial Quality of Drinking Water.

• HBTs provide a quantitative measure of the microbial safety of drinking water
• HBTs provide an assessment of enteric pathogen risks in the source water and inform appropriate risk management measures (barriers) required to manage pathogen risks
• The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (the Guidelines) promote preventive risk-based management of drinking water quality from source to consumer with the Framework for Managing Drinking Water Quality (Chapter 3)
• The HBTs assessment and preventive measures support Elements 2 and 3 of the Framework
• Rather than providing a pass/fail metric, HBTs assessments provide a basis for assessing the level of treatment required and help prioritise improvements required.

?Potential Implications/Actions for your Operations

• Whilst not yet a regulatory requirement within Australian jurisdictions at this stage, HBTs are expected to become a regulatory requirement in the future
• Planning to complete HBTs assessments of the enteric pathogen risks associated with the water sources managed by your organisation should be considered.