NORTH QUEENSLAND
DELIVERING ON WATER QUALITY IN THE CASSOWARY COAST – THE CCRC JOURNEY TO ELIMINATE BOIL WATER EVENTS schemes supply water to a connected population of about 13,000.
Geoffrey Smart
Cassowary Coast Regional Council (CCRC) has four water supply schemes that supply water to a total population of about 26,500 located in the towns and communities stretching from Innisfail to Cardwell and including the town and surrounds of Tully and Mission Beach. Only the Innisfail supply scheme has full treatment. The Innisfail Water Treatment Plant (WTP) draws its water from the Johnstone River which is classified as a category 3 water source with substantial upstream agricultural uses and human settlement. The three other water supply schemes south of Innisfail all draw their water from small creek systems with intakes within World Heritage listed National Parks and have no treatment other than course filtration and chlorination. These three run off creek water supply
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In 2013, CCRC received approval from the Water Regulator of its first Drinking Water Quality Management Plan (DWQMP). The plan included improvement plan initiatives that were directed at improving the monitoring and operations of its three run of the creek systems including upgrading SCADA, turbidity monitoring and chlorination systems. These improvements were undertaken between 2012 and 2014 and Council quickly discovered that many of the summer storms and weather events were creating turbidity spikes in the creek systems and chlorination was possibly ineffective and hence boiled water alerts needed to be
Nyleta Creek Intake – Course screening.
ENGINEERING FOR PUBLIC WORKS | SEPT 2021
initiated. Up until this time and the associated implementation of full SCADA and monitoring systems, boil water alerts had been rare. Some of these communities had been living with these conditions for many decades and there was substantial community confusion and dismay that Council was now insisting on the boiling of their drinking water. Within the space of a couple of years, communities which may have been subjected to maybe one or two boil water alerts a year were getting far more. In 2017, Council issued 18 boil water alerts. Some of the impacted regions were tourist towns such as Mission Beach and communicating boil water alerts into these areas was particularly challenging. The local Woolworths at Mission
