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The World Health Organization considers water quality aesthetic parameters affecting taste, odor, and appearance as factors to be monitored to determine the overall safety of water. Water safety plans (WSPs) can be used by utilities to proactively identify aesthetic hazards, rank them by likelihood of occurrence and consequence to the utility, generate risk scores, and provide direction on how to monitor, mitigate, and verify that controls are in place. The City of Wichita Falls Public Water System (CWF PWS) used the water safety planning approach to outline how aesthetics may negatively affect the system from source water, in-plant processes, and into the distribution system. By proactively identifying these hazards and outlining what to do using a WSP, the utility has put measures in place to ensure that aesthetically acceptable water is delivered to their customers. This article outlines the water safety planning process for water quality aesthetics and how the CWF PWS developed and implemented its WSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key Takeaways: In the United States, US Environmental Protection Agency sanitary surveys provide valuable interaction between primacy agencies and public water system operators and managers. Water safety plans (WSPs), often used worldwide, can be an additional tool for sanitary surveys to integrate multiple barriers of public water systems and focus on prioritized hazards and conditions. WSPs are reasonable for implementation because they use existing regulatory compliance means as well as operational standards of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]