Summaries of DWQR incident investigations

The quality of Scotland's water supply is excellent, but very occasionally things do go wrong. It is vital that Scottish Water responds quickly to put things right and ensure that the same problem cannot recur at that location or elsewhere.

DWQR receives notification of every sample failure and water quality problem that occurs in Scotland. More serious events are classified as incidents and DWQR will usually request a full report from Scottish Water to explain exactly what happened and what has been done to put things right. Once the report is received, DWQR will investigate further to make sure that everything possible has been done to fix the problem and prevent it happening again. Upon completion of an incident investigation, DWQR will publish a short assessment of the incident and Scottish Water's response, and may make further recommendations to Scottish Water. If the incident is especially serious, DWQR will take enforcement action or recommend a prosecution of Scottish Water.

DWQR's assessments of water quality incidents that occurred in 2009 have recently been added to the website and are available here. More will be added in due course.