Water is a precious resource. It sustains life and is vital for us and our environment.
For Council, providing safe, reliable, efficient water and wastewater services to local residents and businesses is one of our core responsibilities.
The supply of safe drinking water begins in our drinking water catchments, where water is stored before being treated and supplied to the community. On the Fraser Coast, water is purified at four water treatment plants.
Water is used in so many different ways, including drinking, bathing, washing clothes, flushing toilets, watering gardens and filling swimming pools. Wastewater that enters the sewerage system is treated at one of eight sewage treatment plants on the Fraser Coast.
The sewage treatment process makes recycled water and biosolids by-products that are reused by some local activities like agriculture, golf courses, sporting fields and turf farms.
Over the next 20 to 30 years, the population of the Fraser Coast is expected to increase significantly, which will impact on how water is provided and how it is used and reused.
Council has a range of strategies underway or in development as part of an overarching Water Resilience Framework. The framework spans from source water storages to recycled water and biosolids reuse, with the aim of securing our water future on the Fraser Coast.
It’s all about ensuring we have a sustainable, affordable and reliable water future for our community and our environment.
Our water supplies rely on rainfall with our water source storages monitored daily by Council and managed carefully to ensure there is enough water during periods of prolonged dry weather.
To ensure the balance between always having water available and the cost to provide water to the community, water restrictions are a widely used method of managing the available water.
Based on current climate and population forecasts, the most recent strategies have identified that our current dams and weirs will provide safe water supply yields for Hervey Bay until at least 2046 and Maryborough until at least 2066.
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