Tap water not even fit for dogs! – Owl

For Colin Sherratt, the first sign of trouble with his water supply was when his dog refused to drink from her bowl.

Jack Malvern www.thetimes.co.uk

Marney, a papillon, knew something was amiss long before the water company that apologised on Thursday for allowing a parasite to infect the water supply for 16,000 households and businesses in Brixham, south Devon.

Sherratt, 74, and hundreds of other residents have been exposed to cryptosporidium, a microscopic bug that causes diarrhoea and vomiting and can be fatal for people with weakened immune systems.

Those who spoke to The Times on Friday were unimpressed with South West Water’s apology for the contamination, which was traced to a damaged air valve at the Hillhead reservoir that appears to have allowed tap water to be contaminated with animal waste.

Susan Davy, the water company’s chief executive, has said that she is “truly sorry” for the outbreak.

Sherratt said: “The water company should be down on their knees begging for forgiveness. I went down to Broadsands yesterday to pick up bottled water and was waiting an hour and ten minutes to get six bottles of water.”

When he fell ill, he said, he wondered if it was because he had been to the town’s Pirate Festival at the beginning of the month.

“I can understand why people think they got it from the Pirate Festival because a lot of people have a bit to drink,” he said. “I don’t use Facebook so I only found out what it was when my daughter sent me a link on WhatsApp and I said ‘that’s exactly what your mother had a week ago’. She flew off to Rhodes and she was ill and vomiting the whole flight.”

The UK Health Security Agency said on Friday that 46 cases of cryptosporidium had been confirmed, up from 22 on Thursday, and that more were anticipated.

Residents have been given a “boil order”, requiring them to boil and cool water before drinking it or using it for cooking. They have also been offered bottled water.

Kayley Lewis, whose son, Jacob, 13, was admitted to hospital, called for Davy to speak to residents in person. “I don’t accept the apology,” she said. “I think they need to mean it and they can show that by keeping up maintaining the water pipes.

“The statement feels like they are covering their own backs, even after all this is finished they know the backlash they are going to get. They haven’t been quick enough to deal with it once they discovered the problem.”

Lewis added that the £115 compensation offered was insufficient. “The bosses need to come down here and arrange something in Brixham town hall and speak to the people who are affected and explain what happened and when.

“I was angry when I found out the cause, we had joked that it must be something in the water but only because we were sure it was a bug. When Jacob fell ill we were told to keep him hydrated so we fed him more water, which actually made him worse.”

At the reservoir, dozens of South West Water workers sought to deal with the fault, pumping water out onto nearby roads.

Tanya Matthews, 42, who was the first to complain on a local Facebook group on Monday that the water was making her ill, also said that the apology was inadequate.

“The day after I posted it they came round to test the water but they were still telling everybody to keep drinking it,” she said. “The water they took from my house they said would take 24 hours to get the results so they weren’t all negative. Why didn’t they put a boil order in place as a precaution while they tested? That delay has led to a lot more sick people.”

Matthews also said that the £115 was scant compensation for her partner, who lost a week of work to illness, or for the cost of travelling to get bottled water and lavatory paper.

Sam Hankin, 35, said he had suffered stomach cramps, but his five-year-old daughter Evelyn had been badly ill for two weeks and was waiting for GP test results to confirm whether she had been exposed.

“I think the trust has gone with South West Water, there wasn’t much there in the first place and it’s not what happened, it’s how they handled it,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll go straight back to trusting the water.”