Backflow prevention devices exist for the primary reason to protect drinking water supplies from being contaminated. As landscape industry professionals we have the responsibility to care for the health and wellbeing of our clients and the general public by having a thorough understanding of our obligations when it comes to protecting the water supplies that we connect too when installing an irrigation system.
Essentially when we connect to a drinking water supply in residential or commercial situations we are required on most occasions to install a backflow prevention device at the point of connection of the irrigation system. There are different ratings of devices that will protect against low, medium and high hazard contamination situations. We will go through ratings and different types of devices in another blog.
The name backflow prevention device gives a pretty good description of what the device actually does. We are trying to stop potentially contaminated water flowing back into the drinking water supply.
But you might ask ” how could that happen?”
Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario (and assume that no backflow prevention device has been installed)
A homeowner (Joe) has installed his own popup irrigation system and it has been operating well for a number of years, Joe loves his lawn and regularly sprays the weeds with a weed spray. After a day of spraying, he forgets to shut his irrigation down for the night and the irrigation runs overnight. He ends up with a puddle in the corner of his lawn, there is a popup spray in the middle of the puddle. His lawn has poor drainage, so the puddle will be there for a couple of days. The puddle is a mix of water and weed spray. That night the irrigation system operates and the popup spray in the middle of the puddle begins to spray – simultaneously a car 200m down the road runs over a fire hydrant causing water to flood all over the road. Joe’s sprinkler has no pressure and stops working. The water leak down the road is huge, No one’s taps are working in the entire street! Slowly the puddle around joes sprinkler disappears as the water enters back through the popup and into the town water supply. After an hour the water authority has fixed the leak. Thank goodness for that because Joe’s neighbour Gladys was really thirsty. She fills up a glass that now has Joe’s weedkiller in it. Joe will now be facing a coroners court to explain why there was no backflow prevention device installed on his irrigation system”
I know that this story seems unlikely, but it is possible and because people lives are at stake – we not only have a moral and ethical obligation to protect the public, we also have a legal obligation.
The brand “Watts” is a manufacturer of Backflow prevention devices, they have a document entitled “Backflow incidents that could have been prevented” with some really sad and interesting stories where contamination of water supplies occurred. Click on the link below to find that document.
Stories like Joes is why backflow prevention devices exist.
Please reach out if you’d like to know more or want some help ensuring your backflow compliance.
You can contact us via www.ecostreamwater.com.au