TasWater’s four new water treatment plants supplying Gladstone, Cornwall, Wayatinah, Fentonbury and Westerway are now in operation.
The stringent water quality testing program done over several weeks has begun in Gladstone, Cornwall and Wayatinah for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to determine if the boil water alerts in these towns can be lifted. The testing program for Fentonbury and Westerway is also set to begin.
Gladstone and Cornwall in the state’s north-east and Wayatinah in the central highlands received modular water treatment plants constructed in a factory in Launceston by TasWater contractor TRILITY and its partner Hydramet.
Local company Stornoway have completed installation of a new treatment plant on site to supply both Fentonbury and Westerway in the Derwent Valley.
TasWater CEO, Mike Brewster, says this is an important milestone on the road to achieving the removal of these long-standing public health alerts in the regional towns across the state.
“Soon the 280 TasWater customers in these five regional towns will have access to clean, safe drinking water, but we aren’t quite there yet.” Mr Brewster said.
“We would like to stress to our customers to continue to boil their water before consuming it until the comprehensive testing is complete and the DHHS have removed the public health alerts.
“Since we began our 24glasses – Regional Water Supply Program, 13 public health alerts have been lifted with the remaining set to be removed by the end of August this year.
“This is a great outcome for our customers and for the future development and tourism in regional areas of our beautiful state.”
TasWater will keep the community informed of progress ahead of the DHHS approving the lifting of public health alerts relating to the use of water, which for now remain in place.
