Brownsville Public Utilities Board - Water - Backflow Prevention Program

BACKFLOW PREVENTION PROGRAM

What is the Backflow Prevention Program?

We all depend on having safe drinking water as close as our faucets but a common plumbing problem, "Backflow," can pose serious community health.

The American Backflow Prevention Association (ABPA) was founded in 1984 to educate and assist residents and businesses in protecting drinking water through an effective cross-connection control. This was done to help protect public health.

Today, the Texas Natural Resource and Conservation Commission and the City of Brownsville are requiring that any actual or potential cross-connections be protected from backflow with an approved backflow prevention to be installed. This is where Brownsville PUB's Backflow Prevention Department comes in to do their job ... to enforce backflow regulations.

What is backflow?
Backflow occurs any time the direction of flow in your drinking water system is reversed.

What is a cross-connection?
A cross-connection is an illegal connection water line through which it is possible for a drinking water supply to become contaminated.

An example can be found in many backyard lawns. A garden hose submerged in a bucket filled with soapy water, chemicals or grass fertilizer.

What is considered a health hazard?
That occurs when either a cross-connection, potential contamination hazard of some kind or other situations involving any substance, liquid or solid, gets carried into the water system and has a high probability of causing illness, spread of disease or even death.

The health hazard can come in the simplest forms such as a backflow mix of water with lawn fertilizer, car washing liquids or pet bathing soap.

I live in an old building.
Nobody is grand fathered in. Unprotected cross-connections or improperly installed assemblies are not grand fathered in and should be either retrofitted to comply with the state law and local plumbing codes (30 TAC Chapter 290).

On the supply side, federal law requires water suppliers or water companies, such as Brownsville PUB, to protect their drinking water system from contamination or pollution by cross-connections. A water use survey is required to ensure no cross connections exist within the building.