As Dallas residents we often take for granted the luxury in the DFW area of not having to wonder about pouring a glass of water to drink. We assume it will always be clear clean and safe to drink but not so to understand what can go wrong we need to understand how our water system works Bruce Rathburn national president of the American Backflow Prevention Association is also a supervisor of the backflow prevention section with the local water system and understands the importance of backflow testing Dallas for protecting the public’s water.
Water Sources
Water really only comes from two different sources: 1. Is the surface water. 2. The other one comes from ground water. With surface water there’s quite a bit of treatment process to go through there, where ground water is naturally filtered and a lot less treatment is needed.
The American back flow prevention association is made up of group of dedicated professionals willing to educate the public on the need to protect our most precious resource, water. ABPA provides the tools and the education materials needed just a as water professionals in the role of making your water safe to drink.
Back Flow Prevention Information
As consumers we expect safe drinking water will be made available by our local water purveyors. Once the water has entered the delivery system our water management facilities can no longer control how it is used.
Firstly anyone who uses water can contaminate it no matter where you are or where you live it can happen it can be as simple as something through a sprinkler system kids out there playing in the backyard hitting something of a contaminate into that system can back siphon from that locale go right out into the distribution system and then contaminate someone’s drinking water.
The engineering school at the university of southern California established the foundation for cross connection control and hydraulic research beginning the study of backflow hydraulics and backflow prevention assemblies.
Backflow of your drinking water can bring the contaminants from your home or business back into the main drinking water line and this could contaminate yourselves and your neighbors. Back pressure is when something inside your building forces the water out of your building back into the main line as opposed to back siphonage which is the suction out of the mainline caused by either a fire hydrant being broken, or a line break or somebody putting a pump on it would actually draw your water or a contaminated water up into the main drinking water line.
Many assume water only flows in one direction as water systems grew in size and complexity it was quickly realized water can travel in the unintended direction or backflow.
Some examples of how back pressure could occur let’s say you are in a ten storey building and you have what they call head pressure. Pressure created by the weight of the water and out at the street there is no backflow prevention thereby there is nothing to stop that contaminated water to come to back in.
The pressure of that building water would push that water back out into the mainline let’s say you’re out there spraying the lawn with those chemical lawn sprayers the sprayers at the end of your hose or you fill in your pool. So you’re spraying it and oh I am hungry I might go in for lunch and lay it down. All of sudden there is a break in that main line or the fire department opens up the fire hydrant to test it.
It is going to literally suck that water back out of the building. It is going to take that chemical in that sprayer bringing into your house and into the main line that’s called back siphonage.
What is a cross connection?
Anytime that you take a drinking water system and interconnect it with another water system that is not designed for drinking you could have kids playing out in the backyard they could take a hose put it off in a bucket that’s a potential cross connection right there waiting to happen if we lose water pressure on our distribution system.
What Creates Backflows?
Backflow events can be generated by normal and abnormal flow events. A common example is a broken water main this can create a negative pressure causing water to travel backwards.
When main break occurs water can travel in a reverse flow it has the ability to go from the site back into the distribution system travel over to the next customer and actually have the water and/or contaminants go right back into the drinking water in just about anybody’s house or apartment.
Just as we have traffic laws for the orderly flow of vehicles on the road we have cross connection rules for the orderly flow of water. The rules requiring the installation of backflow prevention assemblies within the strategic points of a piping system to avoid backflow are not always followed and result in an accident.
Certified inspectors and backflow prevention testers must be ever vigilant and they struggle to keep up with the daily workload of following up on these inspections. Let’s say you may have had a real estate office one time and the next time let’s say a beauty salon requires an in site survey meaning we need to go in and take a look at the occupancy change to determine if a hire has a backflow prevention assembly should be installed to protect your drinking water.
The rules governing cross connection control can be confusing the safe drinking water act holds the water purveyor accountable for the quality of drinking water but does not mandate backflow prevention.
Because several types of the administrative authorities are involved in the rules there are areas of overlap and unfortunately gaps are left in some coverage. Many state and local authorities recognize cross connection control for backflow testing Fort Worth as one of many multiple purveyor approaches available for the protection of their water supply.
The American backflow prevention association is an organization dedicated to educating the general public on the hazards of backflow through various educational events. Through proper cross connection control these hazards can be minimized or avoided. ABPA also works with many professional organizations to help educate them on the hazards of backflow and the solutions for the proper cross connection control.
Their membership consists of State officials water purveyors contractors testers engineers students and many others who share our ideas and educational techniques to help them and you protect our drinking water.
For more information on American Backflow Prevention Association visit their website at www.abpa.org.