Water Quality

WaterQuality

Providing Quality Water is Our Mission

Safe, clean drinking water is what we deliver 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. When Western customers turn on their faucets they can count on their water being purified, tested and monitored to protect their health and safety.

Western Operations team members take daily water samples from throughout the district to ensure our water measures up to state, federal and local purity standards.  

These water samples are tested in the field to detect the presence of disinfectants and other parameters for quality control. Samples are also delivered to our California State Certified Laboratory for further microbiological testing, as well as organic and inorganic chemical testing. The lab uses scientific devices as simple as pH meters or as complex as gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers to assure that Western meets or exceeds required water quality standards.

Western Delivers the Highest Quality Drinking Water

  • Delivering safe drinking water to the residents and businesses in our community is the highest priority for Western Municipal Water District.
  • Western meets and exceeds all State and Federal Drinking water requirements.
  • The drinking water Western provides to homes, businesses and schools meets and exceeds all quality standards set by both the state and federal government. Our highly trained water quality staff continuously monitor water supply and conduct thousands of laboratory tests each year from water taken from sample points throughout our service area.
  • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water are responsible for establishing science-based standards that limit the amount of certain contaminants in water provided in public water systems. California has some of the strictest water quality standards in the nation. Water that meets state and federal standards is safe. These limits are called maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). Water that meets state and federal standards IS safe.
  • An MCL is the maximum amount of a contaminant that can be present while still ensuring that the water is safe to drink. MCLs are designed to ensure that drinking water is safe to consume, while taking into account the detectability and feasibility of removing the contaminant so that water agencies can continue to deliver a consistently safe, reliable water supply at a reasonable cost.
  • An MCL is different from a public health goal. A public health goal is the amount of a contaminant that poses zero risk to public health. It is based solely on conservative theoretical public health risk considerations.  In many cases, it is not possible to remove or reduce a contaminant to the level represented by the public health goal because the technology may not yet exist or may be so costly that it would make tap water unaffordable.
  • Western, like all public water agencies, is required to provide annual Consumer Confidence Reports to our customers that detail local water quality information. The reports are prepared in accordance with state and federal regulations and include information about the sources of drinking water supplies, what contaminants if any are in those supplies, and how those contaminants may affect public health. The reports also indicate how our water supplies compare with state and federal standards.