Legal Aspects of Disinfection and Filtration of Drinking Water

Disinfection of drinking water in Israel is regulated by the public health ordinance (1940), and the people’s health regulations (sanitary quality of drinking water) –1974, (as follows will denoted as “the regulations”). Article 6 in the regulations states that “the supplier should disinfect the supplied drinking water regularly and continuously, in a way that the waters will contain active chlorine in concentration that varies between 0.1 – 0.5 milligram per liter. If the supplier will not disinfect drinking water properly according to the limitations determined in the regulations, the scope of his responsibility will be tested, due to tort’s rules in the civil law, as well as to various rules in the criminal law. Additional entitties which might share responsibility for improperly disinfections of drinking water, are the health authority and the laboratory where the water samples are analyzed. There is no special reference in the regulations which certify the authorities to obliged suppliers using filtration processes in order to increase drinking water quality. However, indirect order (article 2(b((3) in the regulations) that allows the health authority to avoid supplement of drinking water, unless the supplier fulfilling the instructions given by the health authority, can be used by the health authority to enforce the establishment of water filters. In this article, we also review the permissions and licenses that supplier of drinking water is need to obtain, in order to fulfill all the legal requirements according to the Israeli law.