Hughenden residents rely on bottled water as ageing bores make tap water undrinkable
In the Queensland town of Hughenden, residents are increasingly turning to bottled water as tap water becomes undrinkable due to ageing infrastructure. More than half of Queensland's water infrastructure is beyond its service life, and many locals have stopped drinking tap water entirely because of its smell, taste, and colour.
Maree Christensen, who manages a local grocery store, says customers are “choosing to buy water rather than drink out of the tap due to the smell, taste and colour.” Her store sells more than 800 litres of bottled water a week, with families purchasing four to six 10-litre bottles at a time. "Three to six times a day [we] top up the shelves. It's just an ongoing process," she told the ABC's 7.30 program.
The problem has become so severe that a local café has switched entirely to bottled water, including for its coffee machines.
Ageing bore network
Hughenden's water comes from bores drilled into the Great Artesian Basin, with an expected service life of about 60 years. Many of the town's bores have long exceeded this, with one of the oldest drilled in 1902. Replacing individual bores costs about $1 million each.
Flinders Shire Mayor Kate Peddle said the council is stuck in a cycle of reactive repairs. "We're just fixing the problems, but we are not getting ahead of it because we can't be proactive in the planning to replace, because we are always replacing what's broken," she said. Peddle recounted personal experiences, saying, "I've run the bath to put my kids in, and it's been brown."
A state-wide crisis
Queensland Water chief executive Dr Georgina Davis described the situation as a crisis point, with many systems built decades ago now well past their intended life. A report by the Local Government Association found that urgent water infrastructure works across Queensland would cost more than $5 billion.
Local Government Association of Queensland's Allison Brewer noted that "in Queensland we lost permanent funding for water infrastructure back in 2009 and councils since then have not been able to really invest in new capital works even though we knew everything was becoming older."
Compounding the issue, Hughenden's population is expected to grow by 50 per cent over the next six years, driven by its role as a hub for the CopperString project. This growth has helped secure $20 million in state funding for a new water treatment plant, though construction will take several years, and an estimated $15 million more is needed to upgrade other parts of the system.
A Queensland government spokesperson said they were committed to delivering safe drinking water across the state.
This article includes reporting from the