Water is one of those things we rarely think about until we have a reason to. We turn on the tap expecting it to be there. We drink it, cook with it, clean with it, and beyond our homes it supports hospitals, laboratories, agriculture, industry, our environment and much of the infrastructure that keeps modern life moving.
This National Water Week, with the theme Water Connects Everything, we are taking a moment to recognise something even more fundamental: water is life. And behind the water we rely on every day are people, science, testing and systems most of us will never see.
More than 70 years behind the tap
For NATA, National Water Week is also an opportunity to hero one of our longstanding members, Sydney Water. Sydney Water Laboratory Services has been NATA accredited since 1952, representing 74 years of accreditation and a relationship stretching back to NATA’s early history.
Today, Sydney Water’s laboratory and field teams collect samples across its network and conduct up to 70 different tests to help ensure drinking water meets the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Its NATA accredited scope also extends to a range of sampling and testing activities for recycled waters, including microbiological, physical and chemical testing.
It puts a very different perspective on something as ordinary as filling a glass. Behind that simple action are people monitoring, sampling, testing and interpreting results to provide evidence about the quality of the water we use.
These are some of the people we celebrate through Our Members, Our Everyday Heroes. Their work may happen largely out of public view, but its value reaches into our lives every day.
Looking at the water of tomorrow
Our National Water Week journey took us to Sydney Water at Quakers Hill, where we explored purified recycled water and why it is being considered as one of the options that could contribute to Greater Sydney’s future water supply.
With the support of Llana and Dani from the Sydney Water team, we came away enlightened by the thinking, science and treatment processes behind purified recycled water. More importantly, the experience challenged us to think differently about a resource we often take for granted.
The connection to accredited testing is closer than we might imagine. Sydney Water’s NATA accredited laboratory and field sampling capabilities contribute to the monitoring program at Quakers Hill, with samples taken across different stages of the treatment process and analysed to help understand water quality and treatment performance.
Purified recycled water itself is not a new idea. Singapore has more than two decades of experience with NEWater, while Windhoek in Namibia has a much longer history of potable water reuse. Other parts of the world are also exploring water recycling as population growth, climate pressures and water security reshape the way communities think about future supply.
Greater Sydney faces its own challenges and will make its own decisions. But as new water sources are explored, one thing becomes increasingly important: the evidence behind those decisions needs to be trusted.
Even our digital world needs water
The conversation becomes even more interesting when we consider how modern life is changing our demand for water.
Artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital services may feel almost invisible, but the data centres supporting them are very physical, and some cooling systems use water. Sydney Water is already considering potential uses for highly treated recycled water from future Quakers Hill upgrades, including cooling, urban greening and supporting data centres.
It is perhaps one of the more unexpected examples of this year’s National Water Week theme. Water connects the glass on our table with our health, environment and industries, but increasingly it also connects with the infrastructure powering our digital lives.
Confidence behind the result
Accreditation does not make water safe on its own. Water quality relies on an interconnected system of infrastructure, treatment, regulation, monitoring, sampling, testing and technical expertise.
Where accreditation plays an important role is in providing independent recognition of the competence of organisations performing specific testing, sampling and related activities within their accredited scope. When decisions rely on test results, confidence in how those results are produced matters.
Our visit to Sydney Water reminded us that behind the technology are people: those operating the systems, collecting the samples, conducting the testing, interpreting the evidence and continually asking how we can manage this essential resource better.
For more than 70 years, Sydney Water’s accreditation relationship with NATA has been part of that broader story of confidence.
This National Water Week, we celebrate the water that connects almost every part of our lives, but we also celebrate the people working behind it.
Our Members. Our Everyday Heroes.
Because water is life, and confidence in something this important should never simply be assumed.
How much confidence is behind your results?
If your organisation provides testing that customers, regulators, industries or communities rely upon, NATA accreditation can provide independent recognition of technical competence and support confidence in the validity of your results.
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