DWQAR Rules Update 2026

The Rules Have Landed…

Back in late 2025 we looked at the proposed Level 3 changes and flagged the top 7 things you needed to know. The consultation has now closed, the dust has settled, and the Water Services (Drinking Water Quality Assurance) Rules 2026 have been finalised.

So, this time we're focused on what actually changes for you on the ground: a straight comparison of the current 2022 rules (as revised in 2024) against the new, final 2026 rules. That's the lens for everything below — current versus final — written for large supplies running the Level 3 modules.

A few things also shifted between the consultation draft and the final version, some of them significantly. Where that's the case we've flagged it in a short "Since the draft" note, but treat those as a side-story, the main thread throughout is current vs final.

Here are the top things large suppliers need to know:

1.    It’s All Enforceable Now – New Format, New Compliance Year, Restructured Reporting

2.    New Source Water Classes – and a Brand-New Class A

3.    Cyanobacteria and Cyanotoxins

4.    Viral Treatment Requirements

5.    Certain Treatment Options Have Been Removed

6.    Chemicals Now Require a Certificate of Analysis or a Certificate of Compliance

7.    Continuous Monitoring

8.    A Bigger Source Water Monitoring Suite

9.    All Treated Water Must Be Chlorinated

10. Updated Rules for Recycle Streams

1. It’s All Enforceable Now – New Format, New Compliance Year, Restructured Reporting

The biggest structural shift is that the rules are now formal secondary legislation. The old document had plenty of guidance-style content that wasn’t really enforceable; the new format makes essentially everything a rule. A few flow-on effects worth noting:

•     New compliance year: compliance and reporting now run 1 July to 30 June, not the calendar year.

•     Reporting restructured: Level 3 continuous-monitoring rules report monthly (within 20 working days), with detail on any non-compliance.

•     Step-down monitoring: across source, chemical, disinfection by-product and plumbosolvent metal monitoring, a run of results comfortably below 50% of the MAV lets you reduce frequency (reverting if a result climbs back). For stable supplies this will reduce the sampling.

•     Everything’s renumbered: the whole coding scheme has changed (G1 becomes G.RR.x, T3.2 becomes T3.BF.x, and so on), so reporting templates, SCADA tags and SOPs all need remapping.

2. New Source Water Classes – and a Brand-New Class A

The S3 rules still require you to classify your source water, but the old Class 1–4 system is gone, replaced by Class A–D. It’s not just numbers becoming letters, there’s a genuinely new top class (Class A) that sits above the old “secure bore” concept.

To claim Class A, a source must be:

·        groundwater abstracted from a depth greater than 30m via a sanitary bore head,

·        no E. coli or total coliforms detected over three years (12 samples a year)

·        demonstrate it’s clear of F-specific RNA bacteriophage (more on that below).

The proposed update also provides interim status for Class A and B if there is a lack of monitoring data. Interim status can be held for up to 2 years.

Since the draft: two things tightened up. Class A (and Class A Interim) are now networked supplies only – self-supplied buildings can’t use them. And the way you demonstrate low viral risk changed (see item 2).

3. Cyanobacteria and Cyanotoxins

Class C and D sources must be assessed by a Suitably Qualified and Experienced Person (SQEP) for cyanobacteria risk: low, medium or high, for both benthic and planktonic species. This assessment must include where and when they’re likely to show up. Where the risk is medium or high, you’re into monitoring and, where cyanotoxins are found, testing treated water. If cyanotoxins with a MAV turn up in treated water, monitoring escalates:

·        weekly at up to 25%

·        twice weekly between 25–50%

·        daily above 50%

Since the draft: the regime got a lot more specific. The draft worked off a single biovolume trigger (0.25 mm³/L) and a 5% benthic mat threshold. The final replaces these with toxin-specific cell-count triggers (e.g. 65 cells/mL for microcystin producers, 550 for anatoxin producers, 0.0012 mm³/L for picocyanobacteria), adds Microcoleus-specific benthic rules, raises the benthic mat action threshold to 20%, and allows cyanotoxin production-gene testing as an option.

4. Viral Treatment Requirements

The new rules combine viral treatment in with the bacterial rules. From a treatment point of view there’s no new process to install, the requirement is a blanket one (e.g. a chlorine C.t of 15 min.mg/L, or 40 mJ/cm² for UV) rather than a log-reduction calculation.

The exception is Class A: no viral treatment is required but you have to show your groundwater is free of F-specific RNA bacteriophage, sampled across the year.

Since the draft: the draft made proving a Class A source low-risk for viruses complicated and costly, but the final swaps it for one straightforward lab test, F-specific RNA bacteriophage, three samples a year.

5. Certain Treatment Options Have Been Removed

Compared to the current rules, a few processes can no longer be used to demonstrate protozoa compliance:

•     Coagulation without filtration [0.5-log]

•     Second-stage filtration [0.5-log]

•     Slow sand filtration [2.5-log]

Direct filtration is still available but the credit tops out at 3.0-log now (there was a 3.5-log option). If any of your barriers relied on the removed processes, you’ll be looking at a treatment upgrade to make up the log credits.

Since the draft: good news! The chlorine dioxide and direct filtration options the draft proposed cutting were both reinstated in the final.

6. Chemicals Now Require a Certificate of Analysis or a Certificate of Compliance

Every chemical you dose now needs to be demonstrated safe for use, with either a certificate of analysis for each batch or a certificate of conformance to a specified standard. You also have to keep a schedule of every treatment chemical, and chemicals that may be formed in the process, flagging which have a MAV, and monitor for them. Where chlorine dioxide is used, weekly chlorite and chlorate monitoring is now required.

Since the draft: on-site generated sodium hypochlorite and chlorine dioxide are now excluded from the certificate requirement (sensible, given they’re made on site).

Another perfect job for ID: Storing certificates, chemical schedules and the matching monitoring against each supply is another natural fit for ID.

7. Continuous Monitoring

The Level 3 rules lean heavily on continuous monitoring. Every source (or combined sources) must be continuously monitored for conductivity, pH and turbidity, on top of the existing treatment and distribution continuous monitoring. For many groundwater suppliers who’ve been running on grab samples, that’s new instrumentation and new data to manage.

Since the draft: the final adds flexibility, allowing pH and turbidity to be monitored post-treatment in some cases and a few days of lost source-water data each month before grab sampling has to step in.

This is a perfect job for ID: Consolidating continuous SCADA feeds, lab results and field data into one place, and reporting against the rules, is exactly what Infrastructure Data is built for. Talk to Lutra about getting your Level 3 monitoring and reporting set up before 1 July 2027.

8. A Bigger Source Water Monitoring Suite

Annual source water monitoring expands to around 15 chemical determinands at each source. On top of that, there’s new radiological monitoring – gross alpha, gross beta and potassium-40 – every 10 years for Class A, B and Class C groundwater.

Since the draft: the final builds in a relief: where a determinand sits below 50% of its MAV for 12 consecutive results, monitoring can step down to annual (reverting if a result climbs back up). See item 10.

9. All Treated Water Must Be Chlorinated

Consistent with the Water Services Act, all treated water must be chlorinated to carry a residual into the network. This applies even to the new Class A source: it may not need a bacteria/virus barrier, but the water still has to be chlorinated for residual.

Since the draft: the treated water pH limit of 6.5 to 8.0 was dropped, and the turbidity limit was re-tiered: now less than 5 NTU for at least 98% of the time the plant is producing water, with a hard limit of 10 NTU.

10. Updated Rules for Recycle Streams

The current rules allow for a recycle no more than 10% of plant inflow. This is now replaced with a more nuanced tiered system:

·        To raw water storage: keep under 20% of stored volume.

·        Returned ahead of treatment: subject to flow equalisation (broadly 10% of inflow, up to 15% for short periods), provided downstream water quality isn’t affected.

·        Clean-in-place chemical wash water: can’t be recycled.

Since the draft: the recycle rules were rewritten and expanded. The draft’s simple rolling-average limit became the more structured run-to-waste / recovered-water framework above.