YOU don’t have to tell the people of Poowong, Loch and Nyora that it’s been 10 whole days since South Gippsland Water issued a ‘boil water’ advice notice after three samples on January 2 detected low levels of E.coli bacteria in the water.
It’s been an absolute nuisance for everyone, but especially those running cafés and hospitality business.
But today, Friday, January 12, we’re told could be the day when the ‘boil water’ notice is lifted.
Speaking on Gippsland ABC Radio this morning, Managing Director of South Gippsland Water Robert Murphy was optimistic further test results today would give the authority the all clear to lift the conditions.
“Yeah, so are our corrective measures have progressed very well this week,” he said.
“So, we've flushed the entire Poowong, Loch, Nyora system, so that means we've flushed out all the potentially contaminated water and we recharged it with clean, fresh water.
“And right now we're conducting our verification, sampling and testing of that water to confirm that the water is clean and free of E.coli before we can lift to boil water advisory.”
Asked when he expected the ‘boil water’ conditions to be lifted, he said it was likely to come today.
“We're getting more results later today. So, we’ll know when we get those results today what position we are in.”
OK today, or sometime tonight at the latest you will be able to lift the advisory?
“That's right and what it is it’s dependent on those results. We will only lift the water advisory when we're fully confident that the water is clean and safe for consumption,” Mr Murphy said.
“So, we'll see how those results go later today.”
Mr Murphy said it was not common to need a second flushing of the water, so it was likely the Poowong, Loch, Nyora system would get the all-clear today.
“It’s not common but we don't take chances with public health so if there is any risk, you know, we’ll review what our what our options are.”
But Mr Murphy still couldn’t say where the contamination in the system came from, denying that the authority had identified farm runoff, during the recent wet weather, was the culprit.
“Early last week, some of our routine sampling picked up very low levels of E.coli at three sample locations. In response to those test results we issued the boil water advisory,” he said.
For the time being, however, water users in the area are directed to continue following the ‘boil water’ advice. See details on the South Gippsland Water website at https://www.sgwater.com.au/alerts
