Boil water notice lifted for more properties in Devon affected by parasite outbreak
South West Water made the announcement today (2 July)
A boil water notice has been lifted for more than 700 properties in Devon affected by the cryptosporidium outbreak.
The announcement from South West Water applies for people in the Summercombe and Chestnut Drive supply zone.
67\8 properties are still being told to boil their drinking water, as the company continues work to get supplies back to normal.
David Harris, Incident Director at South West Water, said: "We are today lifting the boil water notice for 731 properties in the Summercombe and Chestnut Drive supply zone.
"Having lifted the boil water notice for properties in the Kingswear, Noss Marina, Hillhead Park and Raddicombe supply zones last week, our intensive work and monitoring has returned this part of the network to normal meaning the water in the Summercombe and Chestnut Drive supply zone now meets the high standards our customers expect.
"Our number one priority has always been the health and safety of our customers, businesses, and visitors to the region. We know this situation has been difficult for impacted people and we are sorry.
"As 678 properties in the Higher Brixham, Southdown, Upton Manor and St Mary's supply zone are on a different part of the network, the boil water notice will remain in place for them. We are still working in that area to return the water to normal and we will continue to keep our customers up to date with our progress.
"Since this event began, we have identified, removed and replaced the source of the contamination, a damaged air valve casing on private land."
South West Water say its programme of work has involved flushing over 34km of water pipes, 'ice pigging' and swabbing the network, and installing ultraviolet treatment and microfilters to provide barriers to remove cryptosporidium within their network.
Mr Harris adds: "We have flushed our network 27 times and installed filters, while laying over 1.2km of new pipework.
"Alongside this work, our teams have surveyed our pipes using specialised cameras and conducted regular sampling to be confident that the water supply has been restored to the high standards and to reassure customers that their water is safe when we lift the notices.
"We are sorry for every customer who has been impacted by this incident and we thank them for their patience. We won’t stop until everyone has a clean and safe supply of drinking water, and we are confident we will be able to announce the further phases of lifting soon."
In total, South West Water have removed 15,368 people from boil water notices so far.
Bottled water will continued to be delivered direct to customers and through the company's three bottled water collection points.