Davuilevu mother concerned about water safety

A concerned mother of three says they have been boiling drinking water for years now because the continuous water disruptions in Davuilevu Housing has resulted in their family getting dirty water when it comes back on.

Sangeeta Lal has lived in Davuilevu Housing with her husband and children for 13 years.

She says sometimes the water is dark brown and they leave it running for a while till the colour changes to light brown and then they boil it.

Lal adds there is no water supply in their area at least three to four days a week.

She says she is concerned as her children have been sick and got diarrhea after drinking the water.

Lal adds last week the daughter was sick and the doctor at the Health Centre advised them to boil their drinking water.

The Water Authority of Fiji has reassured customers that water treated through their water treatment plants are safe to consume and has no risk of being infected by the bacteria that spreads Leptospirosis.

WAF says all their Water Treatment Plants across all regions have a Water Safety Plan which is reviewed every three years and consists of a comprehensive risk assessment management tool which encompasses all of the steps involved in drinking water supply, from catchment to consumers.

It says all risks and hazards are identified for water treatment with mitigation plans to prevent the contamination of water sources, ways to treat water so as to reduce or remove contaminants, and ways to prevent re-contamination during storage, distribution, and handling of treated water.

WAF says customers can be rest assured that raw water from the catchments that are received by the Water Treatment Plants undergoes various stages of treatment and processing and is always, as a final step, disinfected with Chlorine which kills bacteria, viruses, and protozoas, including the Leptospirosis bacteria.

Catchment water quality monitoring and surveillance is done on a quarterly basis and reported to the UNEP Head Office under SDG 6.3.2 ‘Proportion of water bodies with good ambient water quality.