The Water (Scotland) Act 1980
In terms of the above legislation Scottish Water must
supply wholesome water for domestic purposes. It is a
criminal offence to supply water unfit for human
consumption.
Ministers must take enforcement action against a water
authority that fails in its duty to supply wholesome water
unless the failure is trivial or the water authority is
complying with a legally binding undertaking to remedy the
matter.
Local Authorities must take appropriate steps to keep
themselves informed about the wholesomeness of public and
private water supplies in their area and notify the water
authority if not satisfied.
Local Authorities are required to secure improvements to
private water supplies if they consider them necessary, and
wholesomeness is defined for public supplies in the Water
Supply (Water Quality) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 and for
private supplies in the Private Water Supplies (Scotland)
Regulations 1992.
The Surface Waters (Abstraction for Drinking
Water) (Classification) (Scotland) Regulations
1996
In implementation of directive 75/440/EEC (Quality
Required of Surface Water Intended for the Abstraction of
Drinking Water), these Regulations prescribe a system for
classifying the quality of inland waters according to their
suitability for abstraction for supply as drinking water.
They provide mandatory values for the classifications DW1,
DW2 and DW3 in Schedule 1 to the Regulations and guideline
values for those classifications in Schedule 2 to the
Regulations. DW1 is the highest classification and DW3 the
lowest.