Water is an essential part of life and during the COVID-19 outbreak our dedicated teams of key workers are continuing to ensure water keeps flowing to your taps 24/7.
Senior Organic Analyst, Frieda Cordon and Chemistry Analyst, Georgina Howell, are two of our key worker scientists working at our state-of-the-art laboratory in Farnborough, Hampshire. More than 1.25 million tests a year are performed at the laboratory on water samples taken daily from treatment works, storage reservoirs, customers’ own taps and other commercial businesses.
Every day we make sure people have clean, safe drinking water coming out of their taps. That’s big!
Frieda
“The site operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year including Christmas Day and we test for more than 200 substances from chemicals to micro-organisms and also analyse the taste and odour of the water.
“Ever since COVID-19 arrived here and people started panic buying bottled water it became clear people do worry about whether they’re going to have safe, clean drinking water and that’s actually what we come here to make sure people have every day.
“When situations like this happen it makes you pay attention to things you didn’t really think about before. I’ve been doing this job for three years and I’ve always known it’s important, but only now since this pandemic began, have I stopped to properly think about how important – it’s vital. Every day we make sure people have clean, safe drinking water coming out of their taps. That’s big!”
Georgina
"We’re really proud of what we do and that we’re playing an integral role in keeping the country going at this time.
“There’s a sense of pride that there’s something we can do to help, it’s not an individual effort, we’re part of the national effort. My immediate family work in the NHS and we’re really proud of them, but they turn around daily and say that we’re just as important in keeping everything running. Hospitals need water, schools that are still open need water, people’s homes need water, everyone needs water. It’s something that we all take for granted until you hit a time like this. I’m very proud and grateful we can do something to help.
“We’re following the Government’s social distancing guidelines and also building resilience in the team to ensure that if colleagues fall ill, we can continue testing and ultimately, keep water flowing to customers’ taps. To help us do that we’ve implemented a new shift pattern which means there are less people in the building so we’re not interacting as much, but also if someone is ill on the morning shift there’s still the late shift that can carry on and keep the lab running.
“The morning shift and the late shift staff are totally separate and so are the various teams within those shifts. It’s strange not interacting with colleagues like we used to but we’re a strong team and are keeping up morale."
We’re really proud of what we do and that we’re playing an integral role in keeping the country going at this time.
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