Council welcomes funds to study water pipeline to Queensland

10 October 2018

Pipeline an insurance policy

Tweed Shire Council has welcomed a $95,000 grant from the NSW Government’s Safe and Secure Water Program to help investigate the viability of connecting the Tweed District Water Supply to the South-East Queensland supply.

Any pipeline connecting the two would be a contingency in the event of a catastrophic failure of the Tweed supply.

The remainder of the estimated $380,000 cost of the study will be paid by Council.

“We are looking at connecting the Tweed supply to the Queensland supply to ensure continuity of our water supply in the event of a catastrophic failure of the Tweed Water Supply, such as a contamination event like the saltwater ingress to the Bray Park Weir pool that occurred in August 2017 and took our supply offline for many days,” Water and Wastewater Manager Strategy and Business Robert Siebert said.

“In that event, we used water stored in our reservoirs and were assisted by Gold Coast Water by the opening of a small pipeline connection with the Gold Coast at Boundary Street in Tweed Heads. We also asked residents to reduce their consumption during that event.

“A permanent larger pipeline would provide surety in the event of a catastrophic failure of our supply.”

Council will now engage a consultant to undertake the study.

The grant was announced by Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair last week with State Member for Tweed Geoff Provest and Council staff.

The $1 billion Safe and Secure Water Program so far has helped fund 28 projects throughout the state aimed at improving water security.

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Caption: Councillor Warren Polglase, Member for Tweed Geoff Provest, Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair, Councillor James Owen and Manager Strategy and Business Robert Siebert at the funding announcement at Banora Point reservoir.