If you have been notified that you are required to provide results of routine testing of backflow prevention devices, please contact your plumber or click here for a current list of ASSE-certified backflow device testers.

Do you have a public water service connection?

Are you a commercial or industrial property?

Is there a kitchen, bathroom, or faucet in your building?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you are in danger of contaminating the water supply.

What is backflow and how can we prevent backflow incidents?

Backflow is the unintended reversal of water from the direction it is intended to flow.  LCWSA’s water distribution system is intended to flow water from our main to your service line into your building.

When pressure operating systems fluctuate, it may cause water to flow in the opposite direction which leads to your water coming back into the distribution system and creating a potentially hazardous cross-connection.

For your safety – and required by law – all customers must install and maintain backflow prevention devices in their water systems.

Additionally, customers should implement good usage habits to reduce the potential for backflow incidents, such as:

Never leaving a hose submerged in a bucket of non-potable liquid

Ensuring the water level in any tank of liquid is below any type of faucet or inlet level

Taking Action for Safety

Under the 1974 Pennsylvania Safe Drinking Water Act, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources requires that customers eliminate cross-connections or install backflow prevention devices.  This regulation applies to individual homes, businesses, and commercial and industrial establishments.

The regulation requires that backflow prevention devices be tested at least once each year.  When necessary, they must be repaired to ensure property operation.

Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority’s Cross-Connection Control and Backflow Prevention Program is part of the Water Rules and Regulations.

What is a Cross-Connection Control and Backflow Prevention Program?

The purpose of a Cross-Connection Control and Backflow Prevention Program is to protect the public potable water supply from possible contamination or pollution by isolating, within its customers’ internal distribution system, contaminant which could backflow or backsiphon into the public water system.

Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority’s Cross-Connection Control and Backflow Prevention Program promotes the elimination of existing cross-connections between the potable, public water system and non-potable systems.

Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority (LCWSA) is committed to protecting drinking water quality.  Through the Cross-Connection Control and Backflow Prevention Program, LCWSA is working to eliminate the potential for backflow incidents to occur.    

Click here for more information from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the importance of backflow prevention.