corporate report<\/a> that came before council on Monday from Scott Neuman, Surrey\u2019s general manager of engineering.<\/p>\nThe annual assessment is required under the British Columbia Drinking Water Protection Act to show what Surrey is doing to meet water quality monitoring requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo ongoing concerns related to bacterial contamination were identified,\u201d Neuman said.<\/p>\n
Last year, 3,094 water samples were collected and analyzed and E-coli was detected in one of the samples but follow-up sampling confirmed negative results and precautionary flushing was completed in the area affected, Neuman noted. \u201cEight additional samples initially showed the presence of total coliform bacteria; however, subsequent testing following system flushing confirmed negative results.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City of Surrey also \u201ccontinuously\u201d monitors chlorine residual levels throughout the 1,894-kilometre distribution system. Of that, 1,784.5 kilometres \u2013 94.2 per cent \u2013 of the pipes are constructed from material that meets today\u2019s standards, Neuman revealed, while the remaining 109.1 kilometres \u2013 5.8 per cent \u2013 are constructed from materials \u201cthat are no longer used,\u201d such as asbestos cement, cast iron or are concrete cylinder pipes.<\/p>\n
\u201cA key part of maintaining water quality in the distribution system is the maintenance and replacement of aging or non-standard water mains and associated components. For water mains, this is important as older pipe materials are more prone for failure and deplete chlorine levels more quickly than current materials,\u201d Neuman reported.<\/p>\n
He said city hall\u2019s approach to water asset replacement is focused on retiring the discontinued material\u201d and in 2025 two kilometres of water mains and four pressure reducing valve stations were replaced in 2025.<\/p>\n
As for the city\u2019s water metering and voluntary meter program, launched in 1999 in an effort to conserve water, today about 81 per cent of Surrey\u2019s roughly 96,000 water users are metered, Neuman said, representing roughly 64 per cent of the annual water volume used in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis difference between percent of customers and percent of water use can be attributed to higher unmetered residential water use due to lack information around consumption or unknown leaks,\u201d he explained. \u201cThis is also attributed to many of Surrey\u2019s parks and outdoor spaces being unmetered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year 430 households joined the residential metering program. \u201cTo better serve residents move over to a water meter, the water meter program will be revisited for 2027 to understand barriers and to propose new supports for installing water meters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Surrey\u2019s water distribution system is one of B.C.\u2019s largest, with 30 pressure zones supported by nine pump stations. Neuman said the aim is to flush the entire system on a five-year cycle. Water quality monitoring sampling is done at 51 sampling locations weekly for analysis.<\/p>\n
He added there was no reported tampering or vandalism of Surrey\u2019s water system in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecurity measures include lighting, secure access controls, and alarm systems at pumping stations, as well as backflow prevention devices installed on service connections,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey\u2019s drinking water system \u2018proactive and robust\u2019 Published 9:05 pm Monday, May 11, 2026 Surrey\u2019s water distribution program…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-663790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}