Thames Water has issued an update after E. Coli was found in an area of South East London. The dangerous bacteria was found in just one home in the Brockley area.
People in Brockley were advised to boil their water before using it for some time until Thames Water could conduct some tests, reported The Guardian. The boil notice said: “The samples we have recently collected from your drinking water tap were not of the quality we would normally expect.
“We are investigating whether this may be due to an issue with our mains supply or whether this is related to your internal pipework or fittings. As a precaution we therefore advise you to boil all water before it is used for drinking, cleaning teeth, preparing food, provision of drinking water for pets.” It was also recommended that taps and sinks were bleached after use.
Thames Water confirmed today (Tuesday, January 7), that following some tests, they found that the issue was isolated to a single property and that the surrounding homes were safe.
They wrote: “As part of our normal process, we have tested surrounding properties and all other sample results were clear with no E. Coli found. There are no concerns surrounding the quality of drinking water in the area and customers can continue to use and drink their tap water as normal.
“For the impacted one property – we have issued boil water advice while investigations are ongoing. To reiterate there are no concerns surrounding the quality of our drinking water in the area and this issue is isolated to a single property. We have taken swift action and will continue to test over the coming days as part of our regular process.
“We take the quality of our water extremely seriously – it is amongst the highest quality drinking water in the world – and since 2010 more than 99.95% of tests taken from customers’ taps met the standard required by UK legislation. Every year we carry out more than 500,000 tests, taking samples from source to tap.”