Renewed Investment Equals Results! A Cultural Shift at the Lab Benefits Our Drinking Water Customers

Read about the many improvements we've made to our lab over the past couple of years.
A lab technician pouring a sample into a container Our lab technicians are staffed and trained to monitor the water treatment process and ensure that our water quality meets or exceeds all regulations.

The lab at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has undergone tremendous improvement these past two years. In 2017, we partnered with CWM Environmental (CWM) to provide oversight and management of our lab. They have trained our staff, support day-to-day functions, and provide additional resources to facilitate long-term planning.

Our staff has since gained the accreditation to analyze water samples without the help of a third party. We are also investing in new equipment and technology to measure water quality. This is helping us better understand the makeup of the water we draw from the Allegheny River and the effectiveness of our treatment process.

New machinery provides precise readings about our source drinking water and helps to determine the appropriate level of treatment. An area where we are seeing vast improvements is in our turbidity levels – the cloudiness of the water before and after it is treated. Using this technology, our testing and ability to monitor has improved. We are achieving lower turbidity levels than any we’ve seen in the past five years.

We are fortunate to have a scale replica of our treatment plant to test new treatment methods and processes. We are now putting this resource back into service and are using it to assess a new method to improve the coagulation step of the water treatment process.

Coagulation causes the dirt and other matter found in our source water to clump together, so it is more easily separated and removed. If the new coagulation method proves effective and is approved by the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), we can expect to see even lower turbidity levels and improved water quality.

Our partnership with CWM will continue into 2020 as we take the final steps to regain our certification.

We are proud of all that the lab has accomplished. Without this renewed investment in equipment, staff, and technology, these improvements would not be possible. The lab and the men and women that work there every day are making continuous improvements to provide customers with safe, reliable drinking water. Our ratepayers can have greater confidence in the quality and safety of their drinking water when they turn on the tap.