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| Special Services Division |
| Cross Connection Control / Water Protection |
| What You Ought to Know About Backflow... |
Backflow prevention plays a significant role in protecting the quality of drinking water as it travels through the miles and miles of piping to each customer’s tap. The delivery of this water relies on the use of pressure. Water, like electricity, always takes the path of least resistance, traveling from areas under high pressure to areas under lower pressure. Under normal conditions, Austin's water travels in one direction, from the treatment plants through the water mains to each customer’s individual service connection. However, under certain pressure loss incidents, such as a water main break or fully opened fire hydrant, the water can be forcibly siphoned back into the public water system, a condition known as backflow.
Although this may sound harmless, water that is in the pipes on the property owner's side of the meter can be exposed to many outlets, fixtures and potential contamination sources. These include sinks, irrigation systems, toilets, showers, washing machines, hose bibs, and commercial fixtures like boilers and cooling towers - all of which can be exposed to chemicals, microbes and other harmful substances. Some appliances have backflow prevention devices built-in for this very reason, yet many do not. Landscape irrigation systems, spas, swimming pools, solar water heating systems, or even a bucket of soapy water being filled by a garden hose, are a few example cross connection sources illustrating just where such extra protection may be needed. Imagine what would happen if someone had a hose in a bucket of liquid fertilizer and a loss of pressure occurred on a system without a backflow device!
The Austin Water Utility administers a backflow prevention program in conjunction with federal, state and local codes to ensure that backflow prevention devices are installed and maintained where backflow may be a risk. Typically, backflow prevention devices are required within plumbing systems that have connections that use or contain industrial fluids or chemicals, irrigation systems, fertilizers, and/or auxiliary sources of water—collectively known as hazards. As a part of these regulations, water customers with certain hazards present are subject to annual inspection, maintenance, testing and reporting requirements to assure that each required backflow prevention device continues to protect against any cross connections. The requirement for such a device is determined during plumbing inspections (Building Permit Process) conducted during initial or remodeled construction projects that involve a plumbing system. These determinations are also made as deemed necessary by program personnel as part of a Water Protection Survey. With the same water protection focus, this office also addresses special program requirements as they apply to private fire hydrant maintenance, temporary water service permits (for withdrawal of water from a fire hydrant) and customers with auxiliary or reclaimed water service.
Our ultimate goal is your safety. So please use this website to familiarize yourself with these requirements and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
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