Council set to turn on dual-water scheme

Tuesday, December 12.

Orange City Council has written to more than two thousand local residents and property owners with details of the next milestone in the water scheme.

Around 2,000 new houses in the north Orange area have been built with the capability of being connected to both high-quality (potable) drinking water from Orange Water Treatment Plant, and non-potable water supplies, sourced from Orange’s storm-water harvesting scheme. The non-potable water will be used for flushing toilets and watering gardens from outdoor taps.

Orange Mayor Reg Kidd said while residents won’t notice any difference about water around their house when the new system is turned on for the first time, it’s important they be aware of the change.

“Over the last couple of years, there’s been high-quality drinking water flowing through both sets of pipes,” Cr Kidd said. “While the water that will flow from outdoor garden taps will still be high-quality water, it won’t be treated to the industry standard of drinking water.”

“It’s very unlikely that a child could get sick if they accidentally drink water from an outdoor tap, but it’s something parents should be aware of. The outdoor taps have a purple-coloured attachment and a nearby ‘Recycled Water’ sign to make the difference clearer, but parents should be aware in case their children use them.”

Orange City Council’s Infrastructure Committee chair, Cr Sam Romano, said the dual-water scheme is expected to be turned on next week.

“It been a long road to get to this point,” Cr Romano said. “As well as building infrastructure, we had to check every house, one by one, to make sure there were no cross-connections.”

“I’m pleased we’ve now reached the point where this system can be fully-operational.”

There is more information about the dual water scheme including FAQs on the council website at

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

‘Raw’ water will be pumped from dams in the Ploughman’s Valley Storm-water Harvesting scheme on the western side of Orange, to one of the settling ponds built for the Blackman’s Swamp Storm-water harvesting scheme on the city’s eastern outskirts.

After treatment to remove sediment, the non-potable water will be pumped to one of the reservoir-tanks in North Orange where another low-level treatment involving ultra-violet light will happen.

From there the water will flow through water mains to houses in the North Orange and Ploughmans Valley area. Residents in other areas of Orange are not connected to the dual-water scheme.

The council has spent around $3.2 million building the infrastructure, that will supply ‘non-potable’ water to houses, including :

 the laying of 6 kilometres of water pipes,

 the construction of a new pump house and

 the installation of new treatment facilities.