Turbidity and Microbial Risk in Drinking Water

The Minister of Health, George Abbott, has released a report on the management of drinking water systems in British Columbia. The report was prepared by an internationally recognized committee of water experts that had been appointed by the Minister to look into the effectiveness of using turbidity as an indicator for assessing risk in public water supplies, as well as the use of public water quality advisories as a means of communicating risk. The report concludes that turbidity alone is not a predictive indicator of health risk and that advisories are often misunderstood by the public and may be ignored.