Quality of drinking water poor in NSW town of Yass

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A town near the nation's capital is fed up with the quality of its drinking water. Yass is home to around 17,000 people and a recent survey by the council revealed 85 per cent of them refuse to drink the tap water. Residents say it smells like rotten eggs and is often a dirty brown colour.

Transcript

00:00 It's that bad that we buy our water in 600ml bottles, which is 24 in a lot, and 10 litre

00:12 ones for cooking and drinking.

00:14 Even for cooking, huh?

00:16 And so how much are you spending a week on buying water?

00:21 Anywhere between $40 and $50.

00:23 Geez.

00:24 And I think we can bring up some images now that we've got from you showing what's happening

00:28 with the water there.

00:31 So just talk us through these.

00:34 That one, I actually filled two bottles up when we had the latest discolouring, and that

00:41 is actually what settles on the bottom.

00:45 And as you can see, it is now clear, but then you've got that gunk on the bottom.

00:51 And that's what it looks like straight out of the tap.

00:54 Yep.

00:55 Yes, it is.

00:56 So there are actually locals that are actually drinking that?

00:59 Well, yes, there is.

01:02 I mean, if you didn't actually put it in a clear glass or a bottle before you drank it

01:07 on a bad day, you wouldn't know that you were drinking that.

01:12 Yeah, I'm surprised.

01:13 But that's got little granules of dirt and everything in it.

01:19 And so what, have you approached the authorities about this?

01:23 I actually did up a petition.

01:27 I think it was September I handed it in to our local member, Wendy Tuckerman, and she

01:34 presented it to the New South Wales Parliament.

01:38 But I haven't heard anything since that has happened.

01:41 So I don't know where we are at the moment with it.

01:44 And so what was the petition calling for?

01:46 Oh, and what do you, I don't know if you can tell us what that one is.

01:51 They're actually, they're filters of people's homes.

01:55 They put actual filters into the, to make it better.

02:02 And they change them every couple of months and they should be lasting longer than that.

02:07 I think that gentleman there now, he actually was sick from actually drinking it.

02:15 And so what, yeah, what did you ask for in the petition?

02:18 Well, we need a new water treatment plant and it's going to cost millions for it to

02:27 be updated and so forth, but no one's willing to come to the party and fix it.

02:35 It's more or less just band-aid fixing at the moment.

02:39 And so have officials said exactly what the problem is, apart from that's the water plant?

02:47 It's just, it's outdated, the actual water plant itself.

02:52 It's outdated and it needs a lot of work doing to it.

02:55 And what about, what have officials said about the health implications of drinking water

03:01 when it's like that?

03:03 Well, I was told while I was, I had the petition going that it's not up to Australian standards

03:10 for drinking water.

03:13 So yes, I don't drink it, so I just don't trust it.

03:21 And yeah, as you mentioned, you're aware that some locals say they think they've got a bit

03:26 sick from it.

03:27 Yes, diarrhoea and I've got a nephew that breaks out in blotches when he's had baths

03:35 and that.

03:36 It just irritates your skin.

03:39 You know, long-term effect, who knows what could happen to the younger generation of

03:45 this town.

03:46 And as far as you're concerned, this just shouldn't be the standard that we settle for

03:52 in Australia?

03:53 No, no, no, God no.

03:57 And being 40 minutes, 45 minutes from Canberra, you'd think we would be treated a little bit

04:02 better, even like in the country area, the poor old country people get left out a lot.

04:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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