Sydney suburbs told to conserve water after floods
July 6, 2022
Despite one of Sydney’s main water sources, the Warragamba Dam, spilling at record rates over the past few days, Sydney Water has asked some suburbs to conserve their water usage.
Sydney Water said the heavy rain and floods, which have inundated parts of the city, have swept “high volumes of leaves, dirt, and other debris into the raw water catchment”.
“This has posed significant challenges for our Orchard Hills water filtration plant,” the supplier said.
“We are asking residents in this catchment area to reduce their water usage while our filtration systems are working harder than usual to filter and clean the raw water to make it safe.”
More than 30 suburbs across Sydney’s west have been issued with an alert to monitor their water usage.
Which suburbs are affected?
- Caddens
- Jamisontown
- Oxley Park
- Cambridge Gardens and Cambridge Park
- Jordan Springs
- Penrith and South Penrith
- Kingswood and Kingswood Park
- Quarry Hill
- Castlereagh
- Regentville
- Claremont Meadows
- Lemongrove
- Ropes Crossing
- Colyton
- Leonay
- Cranebrook
- Llandilo
- Dunheved
- Londonderry
- St Marys and North St Marys
- Emu Heights
- Mt Pleasant
- Werrington, Werrington County and Werrington Downs
- Emu Plains
- Erskine Park
- Glenmore Park
- Orchard Hills
What do you need to do?
To save water you should:
- Avoid hosing the driveway or other hard surfaces
- Take shorter showers
- Use the half flush on the toilet
- Avoid watering the garden
- Avoid washing your car
- Reduce your use of washing machines and dishwashers (only use a with a full load)
Is the water still safe to drink?
Sydney Water said water is still safe to drink however the system’s ability to produce drinking water is slower than normal.
In order to get it back up to speed, Sydney Water needs to clean filtration plants to free them of debris.
“All of our teams are working overtime due to very large levels of silt and debris entering our system which ultimately slows down our ability to clean our water supply and provide clean drinking water to our customers,” Sydney Water general manager Bernie Sheridan said.
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Sheridan added the warning to conserve water now is to ensure when flood clean ups begin there is an “adequate supply of drinking water”.
It comes as many of these suburbs have been impacted by floodwaters during the recent freak weather event.
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