| If you are concerned about drinking water provision and public health protection, you likely attended, or wished you would have attended, the recent CWWA Symposium "Global lessons for safe drinking water through quality management”. This virtual symposium was organized by the Drinking Water Management subcommittee of the Water Quality Committee, which is chaired by Laith Furatian. Laith and his sub-committee pulled together an impressive set of ten distinguished guest speakers from around the world – Australia, New Zealand, UK, Iceland, US and Canada – to talk about the history and of drinking water quality management systems since the original development in the mid-1990s and the current status of these risk-based approaches to drinking water quality management, how they vary across various jurisdictions, some of the benefits, challenges and pitfalls. Using the marvels of virtual meeting technology, the symposium spanned 21 time zones over two 1.5 hour sessions on March 21 and 22, 2022. And it was all done at remarkably low cost. |
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Day 1 Down Under
Laith started off the first day session by acknowledging the attendance of two notable Canadians who have spent a large part of their careers promoting the criticality of Drinking Water Quality Management – Duncan Ellison (former CWWA Executive Director) and Dr. Steve Hrudey (Emeritus Professor at University of Alberta). He then launched into a discussion with Don Bursill (retired CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Water Quality and Treatment and Chief Scientist for South Australia Water) about the history the Australian Framework for Management of Drinking Water Quality starting in the mid-1990s. The challenges at the time included an over emphasis on financial and business aspects of water utility operation and water quality monitoring and regulatory efforts were focussed at the "end-of-the-pipe”. The solution was development of the 12 point framework based on quality management principles specific to water supplies.
Dan Deere offered his insights into where to begin when setting up a drinking water quality management system (DWQMS). Dan emphasised that WSPs and DWQMS are not the same thing, though they are related. A WSP may be key component of the DWQMS, but there is much more. Dan walked through 8 steps in developing a DWQMS from setting up process flow diagram of the system to avoiding complacency. Annette Davison of Risk Edge emphasised the risk-based approach (RBA) in an DWQMS and the need to move to lead indicators of water quality from lag indicators. This was a common theme throughout the symposium. Annette proposed the Global Risk Management Standard, ISO31000, as a tool for dealing with drinking water system risk with other enterprise risks (e.g. financial) using the same system. Jim Graham presented on the experience in New Zealand/Aoteara. While the country got off to an early start and had 600 WSPs in place by 2014, they veered off course as the focus shifted to having an approved plan, often prepared by a consultant, rather than on on-going risk management. That all changed after the waterborne outbreak in Havelock North in 2016 and the subsequent inquiry leading to significant reform in the water sector. Among the reforms has been the creation of the new drinking water regulator Talmota Arowai, which has taken a much less prescriptive approach. Jim finished with the advice that WSPs are for the water supplier, not the regulator. That touched another common theme – operator ownership of a DWQMS is critical. Cristobel Ferguson from Water Research Foundation finished off day 1 by talking about what is arguably one of the most important pieces of the source-to-tap flow diagram – the source. She presented a sanitary survey methodology and an electronic capture tool that has been used for the systematic identification, data capture and quantification of risks in watersheds in Australia, but that can be applied elsewhere. She finished off by reminding us that the importance of source water protection will increase with climate change. |
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Day 2 Northern Countries
Corrinna Summerhill from the UK kicked-off the second day with a presentation on the importance of organizational culture when developing a DWQMS and WSPs. She stressed the water industry can learn a lot from other industries that operate in high consequence environments, such as air traffic control or nuclear power station operation. Corinna presented a set of cultural criteria for successful WSP adoption that included things like "learning culture” and "empowerment” among others. In the next presentation, we moved west to Iceland where María J. Gunnarsdóttir described 25 years of experience with WSPs in Iceland. María outlined some of the recognized benefits of WSP that included better security, standardized SOPs, better system knowledge, facilitation of planning, information and transparency and overall better documentation. But she also noted some challenges and barriers and that involvement of staff is critical for creating ownership. Eva Nieminski from the Utah then presented on a unique drinking water quality collaboration – the Utah Water Quality Alliance. She stressed that the alliance it is based on team-work and trust, has resulted in continual improvement of water quality, and is a model for other utilities. Robert Cheng from California presented on the AWWA Partnership Programs, which includes Partnership for Safe Water. These programs have the goal of improving public health protection and emerged after the 1993 Cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Milwaukee. Robert stressed that engagement utility staff in ownership of these programs is critical and that the programs were changing culture one utility at time. Ian Douglas, from Ontario capped off the symposium by sharing some operational perspectives of the DWQMS in the nation’s capital, Ottawa. DWQMS are required for all water utilities in Ontario, but the Ottawa system takes it a step further by incorporating research and Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA – one more acronym for you) in the risk assessment. He pointed out how just meeting the Ontario regulations does not mean that Ottawa would meet their internal risk targets based on the QMRA. This emphasises the point that the quality of the system involves many site-specific considerations and that continuous improvement never ends, even with standards |
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Re-Cap:
Together these presentations emphasised that much has been done in the past 20 years or so to develop DWQMS across the world, but that there is still much to do to. Some of the common themes were that end of pipe regulation is not enough to ensure safe water (a risk-based approach that considers the entire system is required), that is critical to involve utility staff in development and that a change in culture is required. Finally, there will also be the on-going battle against complacency in maintaining these management systems and ensuring optimal public health protection. |
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