Dirty water brings 500 complaints

A recent bout of dirty water on the Woy Woy Peninsula resulted in around 500 complaints, according to Gosford Council's director of water and sewerage, Mr Rod Williams.

Mr Williams said the same bout of dirty water was caused by one of two major failures of a pressure reducing valve, which resulted in 10 main breaks over two months.

"The Gosford Council water quality in terms of discoloured water has been better then average against other water authorities except for the Woy Woy Peninsula," Mr Williams stated.

"Gosford Council has experienced two major failures of its pressure reducing valve on the trunk main that supplies the Peninsula over the last two months.

"The first one resulted in nine main breaks, and two weeks ago we had another failure of the valve resulting in one major main break which led to some 500 complaints of dirty water in the Woy Woy Peninsula area out of 13,000 homes.

"We have undertaken a number of initiatives over the last two to three years.

"These include the installation of an aeration or mixing system in Mangrove Creek Dam to reduce the amount of iron being dissolved.

"We have also installed pre-chlorination of the water treatment plant to further reduce iron and magnesium coming into our system."

Mr Williams said the Woy Woy Peninsula had "a number of system problems" arising from its construction.

"These include a large number of dead ends, unlined cast iron mains, unlined fitting valves and fire hydrants," Mr Williams said.

"In the past we have addressed the problems as they have arrived.

"Our response has also been limited due to the drought and our inability to flush the mains.

"A special project team has been setup to address this problem in a comprehensive manner to address the problem from a system perspective and to deliver a number of sub-projects including re-flushing of the mains, replacing unlined pipes and fittings and improving treatment processes to reduce the incidence of dirty water."

Mr Williams said a report on the program would be provided to council in the near future.

Mr Williams said that dirty water was a problem experienced by all water authorities in Australia.

"A Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for water quality and treatment was established over a decade ago to assist the water authorities with this problem," Mr Williams said.

When Cr Vicki Scott asked if the water on the Peninsula was safe to drink, Mr Williams said that water at the water treatment plant and in the system was tested against the Australian Standards and "at all times meets these standards".

"We have also tested the discoloured water and it also meets these standards," Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams original comments were in response to Cr Peter Hale, who asked about the current situation with dirty water on the Peninsula.

Council agenda Q.86, Q.87, 7 Aug 2007