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11
SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE AREA
Water Supply
Dr. E. Windle Taylor, Director of Water Examination of the Metropolitan Water Board has
kindly supplied the following information regarding Tottenham's water supplies:-
"The supply to the Borough of Tottenham has been satisfactory both in quantity and quality
during the year 1959-
The Borough is supplied from two main river derived sources, namely the New River and
the River Thames together with well water from Park Well Pumping Station during the summer
months in the locality of Northumberland Park. Details of the analytical results of the water
passing into supply are set out in the following tables.
Samples are collected on five days in every week, or more often if necessary, at each
stage of the purification process and from the distribution system. Tests include physical,
chemical and micro-biological examination.
All new and repaired mains are disinfected with chlorine before being put into service and
samples of water from them are tested bacteriologically to ensure that its quality is up to that
normally supplied.
The water supplied to this area is not plumbo-solvent.
With regard to radioactivity and monitoring of the Board's supplies, this matter is dealt with
fully for the first time in my 38th Report for the years 1957-58, page 8. This is rather too long
to quote in full, but to compress the results into as brief a space as possible, one may say that
up to the present the amount of strontium-90in the Board's river-derived waters is a small fraction
of one micro-micro curie per litre and in the underground waters there is none at all. Such traces
as have been found are quite insignificant compared with the concentration considered by
competent authorities to be permissible.
Regular monitoring is carried out on all the Board's sources of supply but during these
early phases the procedure of sampling and analysis is liable to frequent modification as new
knowledge is acquired."
Fluoridation of Water
This subject continues to be of great interest in the Borough where the natural fluoride
content in the water supplies is .2 milligrammes per litre. Small traces of this substance of the
order of 1 milligramme per litre have been found by experience in other countries to be of great
benefit in the promotion of dental health and so far as can be ascertained, no harm is caused by
drinking water with this concentration of fluoride.