After a month of faecal contamination of Klagenfurt’s drinking water, the city’s public water company (STW) has narrowed down the source of the problem. According to a press release on Thursday, the contamination was caused by ‘a private well system in the west of Klagenfurt’. STW announced safety measures and a credit note for customers. The total cost of the contamination is around 1.5 million euros.
STW is currently checking all private wells. “So far, more than 500 systems have been inspected, and defects have been found in about ten per cent of the systems,” says the municipal utility. These included broken non-return valves or systems that had been rebuilt. These defects must now be rectified by the owners.
It was initially unclear whether charges had been laid for illegal connections, or whether one of the faulty wells could be the culprit or could be ruled out with certainty.
Hydrants to be monitored
In the future, all hydrants in Klagenfurt will be digitally monitored, “so that every withdrawal from an individual hydrant can be displayed immediately and unauthorised withdrawals can be reacted to immediately”, the STW added. A ‘maximum of ten hydrants’ would be authorised for withdrawal by third parties, for example for construction work. These hydrants will have a fixed shut-off valve to prevent backflow into the public water network. There is, of course, an exception for the fire brigade.
A new testing device has also been purchased. A ‘Coli Minder’ allows more water samples to be taken and analysed much more quickly. For the past four weeks, 40 hydrants in the west of Klagenfurt have been monitored daily. The results complement the official measurements carried out by the ILV (Institute for Food Safety) in Carinthia.
Source. Austrian newspapers
