PUD Wins Gold for Drinking Water Quality

Posted Thursday, March 12, 2020

Skagit PUD’s Water Treatment Plant was awarded a Gold Certificate of Achievement from the Washington State Office of Drinking Water for meeting and exceeding strict water quality standards for the past 10 years.

Skagit PUD’s is among only four water treatment plants statewide to receive the Gold award.

"Achieving consistent high drinking water quality like this is a mark of a highly dedicated and skilled water department staff,” Denise Clifford, director of the Office of Drinking Water, said in a letter informing the District of the award.

Skagit PUD voluntarily participates in the state’s Treatment Optimization Program (TOP), where water filtration plants commit to working toward meeting treatment optimization goals for particle removal and disinfection that are more stringent than current regulatory requirements. Because turbidity (water cloudiness caused by suspended particles) is a readily measured indicator of treatment plant performance, TOP tracks finished water turbidity data for all conventional and direct filtration plants in Washington.

From 2001-2011, the Water Treatment Plant’s finished water turbidity was 0.10 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU) or  less for at least 95 percent of the time, which met or exceeded TOP’s turbidity goal.