Getting water to your tap
Most Tasmanians are fortunate enough that by turning on a household tap they have immediate access to high quality drinking water.
They may never have considered what is involved in making that happen.
Drawing water from the state’s many sources and safely delivering it to homes across Tasmania is a complex process.
TasWater System Performance and Productivity Department Manager Fran Smith said there are many treatment processes involved to ensure customers receive safe and reliable water.
“There are 64 catchments across the state supplying raw water to 60 drinking water systems that feed water to customers through 6,487 kilometres of water mains,” she said.
“Water is delivered direct to our customers through 214, 611 connections state-wide.”
Because water catchments are scattered across the state, the quality of the raw water they provide can vary significantly.
Catchments have multiple uses other than for sourcing drinking water, these include hydro-electric generation, agricultural and recreational activities.
This can also affect the quality of water from the catchments.
“Differing land use, as well as the impacts of bushfires, changes the quality and quantity of water that makes its way to our catchments for us to treat.”
“These all bring different challenges to the water treatment process,” Ms Smith said.
To ensure our customers receive water that is safe to drink, we need to match the capability of our treatment plants to the health risk and water chemistry of each catchment and undertake rigorous testing.
Each year we undertake approximately 130,000 water quality tests, while aesthetic qualities, like odour and colouring, is monitored by a tasting panel.
Water from some catchments may require a more intensive treatment than others to ensure it is safe and tastes good.
To achieve this, we have had to invest in infrastructure.
“We have programs underway to upgrade treatment and capacity at our plants to ensure we can continue to supply Tasmanians water into the future.”
The reliability and availability of water resources is also a critical issue.
These depend on factors ranging from rainfall and storage capacity, to other users of our systems.
“It is also important we comply with our water licenses by extracting the right quantities and at the right times so there is enough water for all users,” Ms Smith said.
The impact of climate is another important factor.
“TasWater works with other agencies to progress our understanding of the current and future capacity and quality of Tasmania’s water storages,” she said.
So next time you turn on a tap, you may consider for a moment what is involved in delivering a healthy and reliable water supply to you.
The water you see falling from the sky is not the same water you see flowing from your tap.