Surrey’s 2025 water report says monitoring and flushing addressed any bacteria findings and continued systemwide safeguards.
Surrey’s water distribution program is “proactive and robust” with residents and businesses continuing to enjoy “safe, reliable, and high-quality” drinking water.. That’s according to city halls water system annual report for 2025, contained in a corporate report that came before council on Monday from Scott Neuman, Surrey’s general manager of engineering.. The annual assessment is required under the British Columbia Drinking Water Protection Act to show what Surrey is doing to meet water quality monitoring
requirements.. “No ongoing concerns related to bacterial contamination were identified,” Neuman said.. Last year, 3,094 water samples were collected and analyzed and E-coli was detected in one of the samples but follow-up sampling confirmed negative results and precautionary flushing was completed in the area affected, Neuman noted.. “Eight additional samples initially showed the presence of total coliform bacteria; however, subsequent testing following system flushing confirmed negative results.” The City of Surrey also “continuously” monitors chlorine
residual levels throughout the 1,894-kilometre distribution system.. Of that, 1,784.5 kilometres – 94.2 per cent – of the pipes are constructed from material that meets today’s standards, Neuman revealed, while the remaining 109.1 kilometres – 5.8 per cent – are constructed from materials “that are no longer used,” such as asbestos cement, cast iron or are concrete cylinder pipes.. “A key part of maintaining water quality in the distribution system is the maintenance and replacement
of aging or non-standard water mains and associated components.. For water mains, this is important as older pipe materials are more prone for failure and deplete chlorine levels more quickly than current materials,” Neuman reported.. He said city hall’s approach to water asset replacement is focused on retiring the discontinued material” and in 2025 two kilometres of water mains and four pressure reducing valve stations were replaced in 2025.. As for the city’s water metering
and voluntary meter program, launched in 1999 in an effort to conserve water, today about 81 per cent of Surrey’s roughly 96,000 water users are metered, Neuman said, representing roughly 64 per cent of the annual water volume used in the city.. “This difference between percent of customers and percent of water use can be attributed to higher unmetered residential water use due to lack information around consumption or unknown leaks,” he explained.. “This is
also attributed to many of Surrey’s parks and outdoor spaces being unmetered.” Last year 430 households joined the residential metering program.. “To better serve residents move over to a water meter, the water meter program will be revisited for 2027 to understand barriers and to propose new supports for installing water meters,” he said.. Surrey’s water distribution system is one of B.C.’s largest, with 30 pressure zones supported by nine pump stations.. Neuman said the
aim is to flush the entire system on a five-year cycle.. Water quality monitoring sampling is done at 51 sampling locations weekly for analysis.. He added there was no reported tampering or vandalism of Surrey’s water system in 2025.. “Security measures include lighting, secure access controls, and alarm systems at pumping stations, as well as backflow prevention devices installed on service connections,” he noted.
Surrey drinking water report, water quality monitoring, E-coli sample follow-up, chlorine residual monitoring, water main replacement, residential metering program, water system security