Fact Sheet 11, Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules 2022
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Application of the Rule Modules, Compliance & Reporting
This fact sheet is an extract from the relevant information from the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules 2022 to help suppliers determine how to apply each rule module and associated compliance and reporting requirements. We recommend reading Fact Sheet 10 first to familiarize yourselves with the Water Supplies Categories and Rules Modules.
Drinking water suppliers must select the Rule modules that apply to each of their registered supplies based on the category that best fits their drinking water supply. Drinking water suppliers must demonstrate compliance against those rule modules for each registered supply. For example, if a networked supply serves 10,000 people, level 3 rules must be used for all source, treatment, and distribution zone compliance, regardless of the number of people served by any single source, treatment plant, or distribution zone. If a distribution zone in a community of 10,000 people serves only 450 people, that zone must still demonstrate compliance against the level 3 rules.
Drinking water suppliers only need to demonstrate compliance against the rules for periods when a drinking water supply is operating. For example, a bore may only be used during the summer period when there is a high level of demand. The source water requirements for that bore would only need to be demonstrated for the period that the bore is in operation.
Monitoring rules are the rules that must be complied with to demonstrate compliance with the Drinking Water Standards. Monitoring rules cover determinands and parameters that need to be either continuously monitored, or regularly sampled. They have compliance periods associated with them.
Reporting requirements are set out in the General (G) rules and are based on the rule modules that drinking water suppliers elect to demonstrate compliance against. Sampling frequencies indicate the number of samples that need to be collected over a given time period. Compliance periods are the length of time over which compliance is assessed. For example, if two samples are collected each week and the compliance period is one month, compliance will be assessed for the month over which the samples were collected. Reporting periods are the intervals over which reporting is required. For example:
1. Suppliers demonstrating compliance against the level 1 rules have a reporting period of six months and must report a limited set of compliance data to Taumata Arowai every six months.
2. Supplies demonstrating compliance against level 2 rules have a reporting period of three months and must report a limited set of compliance data to Taumata Arowai every three months.
3. Supplies demonstrating compliance against the level 3 rules have a reporting period of 1 month and must report a limited set of compliance data to Taumata Arowai each month. The rules that compliance must be reported against in the above timeframes are set out in the General rules. Compliance against all other rules must be reported to Taumata Arowai annually.
One-year compliance periods: For all other determinands and parameters, compliance is reported annually, except for determinands that are only monitored once every three years or once every five years.
Where population thresholds are provided, the population supplied should be calculated on the base population, the population that is normally supplied drinking water regardless of any seasonal increases.
Any drinking water supplier can elect to demonstrate compliance with a higher level of source, treatment, or distribution zone rule module if they choose. For example, a drinking water supply which is required to comply with the level 2 rules modules for source, treatment, and distribution zone, may choose to demonstrate compliance against the level 2 rule modules for source and distribution zone, but the level 3 rule module for treatment if that is more suitable for them. In that case, the rules that they would demonstrate compliance against would be G+S2+T3+D2.
If a drinking water supplier chooses to comply with a higher- level rule module e.g., T3, they must comply with all of the rules in that module. It is up to each water supplier to determine whether they will demonstrate compliance against a higher-level rule module, and over which compliance periods.
A treatment plant may be off-line for several reasons, compliance does not need to be demonstrated for the period that the plant is not operating. However, if a treatment plant operates for only part of a compliance period, data/information must be reported for that compliance period.
One day compliance periods: Any determinand that is continuously monitored or sampled daily, irrespective of the period of the day that the supply is operating has a compliance period of 24 hours (midnight to midnight). Each compliance report must indicate the number of compliant days in the reporting period. It must also provide a report for each non-compliant day, outlining the reasons for any non-compliance. Compliance is assessed as the number of days that compliance was achieved during the previous reporting period.
Assurance rules cover activities that water suppliers need to undertake, for example the preparation of a backflow prevention programme or a distribution zone sampling plan. Assurance rules are not used to demonstrate compliance with the Drinking Water Standards but indicate whether water suppliers undertake activities that contribute to the provision of safe drinking water. Assurance rules have a compliance period of one year. Compliance with assurance rules needs to be reported to Taumata Arowai within 40 days of the end of each calendar year.
A distribution zone is expected to be in operation continually, even when a treatment plant is not, so demonstration of compliance for the distribution zone will be continual. Drinking water suppliers must assess their compliance with the rules and provide a report of compliance to Taumata Arowai, as set out in the General (G) rules.
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