20 Feb Mount Isa Water Board grateful for opportunity to answer community questions
Mount Isa Water Board Chair, Rowena McNally, said the Board was grateful for the opportunity to respond to questions from the community about Mount Isa’s water supply at last night’s community forum.
“We understand the community has a vested interest in Mount Isa’s water supply, so we were pleased to be able to provide community members with some important information and facts,” Ms McNally said.
“Most importantly, we assured the Mount Isa community that its water is safe and continues to meet Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.”
Ms McNally said the Mount Isa Water Board has been managing Mount Isa’s water supply amid some significant challenges.
“Over the past 15 months, we’ve maintained water supply despite a significant bluegreen algae bloom in Clear Water Lagoon — potentially the largest ever recorded in a Queensland water supply system.
“We sourced an immediate and essential filtration solution in late 2013 as Clear Water Lagoon’s natural filtration system had failed.
“Recently, water usage has risen to higher than average levels and this has put substantial pressure on the filtration system. “Reducing the city’s water consumption to match the filtration system’s capacity is critical.
Although we have managed to maintain supply to Australian health guidelines, we still require the community’s vigilance while we implement a more permanent solution.
“Our long-term solution will expand our filtration capacity to 22 mega litres, increasing the amount of clean water we can provide to Mount Isa City Council each day.
“This solution involves us investing $9.2 million into new, micro-filtration water treatment infrastructure for the benefit of the Mount Isa community. This infrastructure will be introduced in March 2015 and is expected to be fully operational by the end of July 2015.
“We would like to thank the community for its help and cooperation over the next few months as we work to introduce this new infrastructure,” said Ms McNally.