The Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) would like to reassure our customers that water treated through their water treatment plants are safe to consume and has no risk of being infected by the bacteria that spreads Leptospirosis.
All our Water Treatment Plants across all regions have a Water Safety Plan which is reviewed every three years and consists of a comprehensive risk assessment management tool which encompasses all of the steps involved in drinking water supply, from catchment to consumers.
All risks and hazards are identified for water treatment with mitigation plans to prevent the contamination of water sources, ways to treat water so as to reduce or remove contaminants, and ways to prevent re-contamination during storage, distribution, and handling of treated water.
Customers can rest assured that raw water from the catchments that are received by the Water Treatment Plants undergoes various stages of treatment and processing and is always, as a final step, disinfected with Chlorine which kills bacteria, viruses, and protozoas, including the Leptospirosis bacteria.
Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of WAF catchments is extremely important and is the reason why we have an Integrated Water Resource Management Team to carry out a combined assessment of our water catchments and subsequently, providing a report to management, highlighting risks and proposing improvements.
Additionally, catchment water quality monitoring and surveillance is done on a quarterly basis and reported to the UNEP Head Office, under SDG 6.3.2 ‘Proportion of water bodies with good ambient water quality.
Communities are also involved in the process to keep water catchments safe, and WAF provides education on the importance of refraining from activities such as farming, grazing, and logging, among other things, near catchment areas.
Caretakers and landowners are also encouraged to take ownership of their responsibilities in catchment protection.
For more information, you can call 3346777 and 5777 (Vodafone, Digicel & Inkk users) or email contact@waf.com.fj