The Prescribed Concentration or Value (PCV) limits are legal thresholds for acceptable levels of contamination in Drinking Waters. These are set out against European Council Directive 98/83EC (November 1998) and applied against the Private Water Supplies (PWS) Regulations for Scotland (2006), England (2009) and Wales (2010).

The PCV limits for England, Scotland and Wales are available here.

ALS Environmental are able to provide both UKAS ISO 17025:2005 and Drinking Water Testing Standard (DWTS) accredited analysis for all parameters set-out in the PWS for each UK country. The DWTS accreditation is the gold standard for Drinking Water analysis; this accreditation is issued by UKAS on behalf of the Drinking Water Inspectorate.

To ensure that customers are compliant with the PCV limits set out in the PWS Regulation ALS Environmental hold the thresholds in our LIMS system. We will provide breach reports for any analysis that exceed the limts set out in the PCV guidance.

When ALS Environmental analyse a Drinking Water samples against the PWS regulations any sample that breaches the PCV limits is highlighted to our customers as a potential fail. We automatically re-analyse the sample to help minimise the risk of false positive results. Once the re-test analysis is complete we will advise customers again of the issue and any appropriate action that may need to be undertaken.

The full list of PCV Limits can be compared against the ALS Environmental limits of detection on our new handy comparison table. The table has been designed to be a quick reference guide to our customers to allow them to, at a glance, understand the limits across the United Kingdom and ALS Environmentals capability in this sector.

To deliver the highest quality of Drinking Water analysis ALS Environmental utilises our "Centre of Excellence" in Wakefield, Yorkshire to test all of our samples. The Wakefield laboratory provides analysis for all standard Drinking Water suites set out in the PWS Regulations including:

• Regulation 10 Suite
• Basic Suite
• Check Suite
• Audit Suite

The ALS Environmental laboratory in Wakefield is the first in the world to offer a fully speciated Haloacetic Acid analysis to both UKAS and DWTS standards.

Lisa Clarke, Operations Director and former Laboratory Manager at our Wakefield site comments:

The highest levels of quality are placed on the analysis of Drinking Water to ensure that the product supplied by Utilities or Private individuals is fit for Human consumption. A great deal of trust and reliance is placed on ALS Environmental to deliver analytical services that help protect Public Health.

For more details on our Drinking Water analysis services please click here, ALS Environmental are also able to offer sampling services for PWS analysis, details of which can be found here.