Monitoring strategy for lead in drinking water at consumer's tap. Field experiments in France

摘要

Following the outcomes of an European project to develop a new protocol for the monitoring of lead in drinking water, field experiments have been carried out in 5 supply zones in France in order to test and to develop practical tools to assess compliance/non-compliance for lead. In each zone, a number of properties have been randomly selected and random daytime (RDT); 30 minutes stagnation (30MS) and fully flushed (FF) samples have been taken. The results confirm that, at zone level, RDT or 30MS samples taken in a sufficient number of properties give almost identical diagnostic. RDT is more practical and acceptable for the consumer whereas 30MS is more reproducible and should be preferred for assessment at an individual consumer's tap. Random selection of properties appears to be a good solution to assess the actual situation in a zone and to help in the definition of priorities and type of actions to implement. Copper and nickel have also been controlled in three zones and the monitoring strategy for lead could also be used for these parameters.