About This Report

ABOUT US

Cairns Regional Council is responsible for delivering drinking water, sewerage, recycled water and resource recovery services to a population of over 170 000. Our 1687km² geographic area is framed by the lush World Heritage listed Wet Tropics rainforest to the west and north and the Coral Sea and World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to the east.

Cairns Regional Council maintains a Drinking Water Quality Management System (DWQMS) that is consistent with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (2011, National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia). The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines are hereon referred to as the ADWG for the remainder of this report.

The DWQMS utilises a risk-based “catchment to tap” approach to identify and manage potential risks associated with drinking water quality. Council does this in partnership with stakeholders and relevant agencies, by:

• Considering the needs and expectations of our customers, stakeholders, regulators and employees and integrate appropriate solutions into our planning to provide and maintain safe water supplies. • Undertaking regular monitoring of drinking water quality and maintaining effective reporting mechanisms to provide relevant and timely information and promote confidence in the management of the water supply systems.

• Having in place appropriate contingency plans and incident response capabilities to respond to and manage water quality incidents.

• Auditing and reviewing our practices against industry standards and stakeholder expectations to continually improve our performance.

• Maintaining competencies of council employees to improve knowledge about water quality, treatment standards and compliance procedures.

• Openly communicating our performance to the community to encourage public awareness.

This annual report describes our performance about the supply of drinking water for the 2020/2021 financial year.