Peninsula without water

Parts of the Peninsula were without water for up to two hours on Friday, January 18.

Gosford Council responded promptly to the interruption, according to the council's director of water and sewer Mr Rod Williams, but refilling the mains took over one hour.

Mr Williams said the interruption to supply was caused by a manual valve failure at Blackwall reservoir at 4.40pm and the first Peninsula residents reported that they were without water shortly after 5pm.

"Council crews were at the manual valve immediately after we received the report of the loss of water," Mr Williams said

"Within 15 minutes another valve was opened.

"However, due to the high usage at this time of day the water pipes were drained.

"Council refilled the system at a slow rate to reduce the risk of mains breaks which may have resulted from air in the system.

"No breaks occurred as a result of this proactive initiative.

"This refilling took over one hour and consequently some residents were without water until after 6.30pm.

"Although the valve failure coincided with works on the Koolewong trunk main, it was not related."

Peninsula Chamber of Commerce president Mr Matthew Wales said: "I am no expert but if the maintenance of a key piece of infrastructure was done properly then a valve failure shouldn't have happened.

"The water outage happened at the worst possible time of day when the Peninsula community was relying on water.

"First we have dirty water, then no water ... what will be next?"

Press release, 23 Jan 2008 Interviews: Meagan Wilkinson, Gosford Council; Matthew Wales, Chamber of Commerce