Rous County Council is building four new bulk water fill stations in Lismore and Bangalow – two for the public and two for licenced water carters.

The local water authority will build the new public stations in South Lismore and Bangalow and the new commercial stations in North Lismore and Bangalow.

The public stations will be operational next week and the commercial ones available next year.

Rous County Council committee member, Lismore councillor Vanessa Ekins said the new stations will cost $150,000 and will help alleviate waiting times for water filling.

“There are already 11 stations across the local government area network, but we are paying to put in the new stations in because water carters are waiting up to two hours to fill at the moment, and there’s a need for more stations for the public,” she said.

Vanessa said people should be aware that Rous Water sell water to water carters for $5.75 for 1000 litres, and the carters sell the water to the public for $250-$450 for a 13,000 litre load delivered.

“You can do the maths on that yourself,” she said.

“If the public want to fill up their water themselves, they can buy a 1000 litre container from a hardware shop and pay by credit card at the filling station.”

Check your water is not contaminated

Vanessa said people who buy the services of a water carter should be careful and check to see if the water carter has a licence to fill up with potable or non-potable water.

“Make sure if you are buying water for household use,” she said. 

“Only use these carters with a licence for drinking water, otherwise it could be contaminated.

“There are 38 licences for carters to collect non-potable water and 27 carter licences for potable water collection.

“Non-potable water is good for things like spraying roads or planting trees, but not for drinking.

“At the last meeting I asked how can we tell people which carters have non-potable water – we have no control over who they sell it to.

“So, Rous County Council will put all the names of the water carters and the types of licence they have on its website so people can check to see if the water they are getting is from the right source."

Vanessa said Council has been going through a licencing check process with water carters and inspecting their trucks.

“If the water is non-potable, you don’t know what chemicals may have been in contact with that water and we know there have already been stock kills from bad water," she said.

Water consumption and water restrictions

Vanessa said it was likely Lismore would be moving from level one to level 2 water restrictions within the week.

“Our normal daily consumption of water used to be 33 megalitres, but last January it was 53 megalitres,” she said.

“Water usage has been increasing and we are worried about the long term weather forecast.

“People need to be careful about how they are using water – by the time we are on level four water restrictions, there is no garden watering allowed at all.

“The biggest household use of water is in toilets, showers and laundry.

“There is also likely more garden watering going on because it has been so dry, people are now watering gardens that used to not need it.”

Get a water tank

Vanessa encourages people to buy a water tank and start using their own collected water.

“It will mean less demand on the reticulated supply and less cost for us to invest in new infrastructure,” she said.

“Rous Water offers rebates for rain tanks and it almost covers the cost of the tank.

 “It’s the best way to store water – our Rocky Creek Dam is losing lots of water from evaporation in the heat.

“Even the rain shower we had the other day was enough to fill up my little tank.”

For more information, visit https://www.rous.nsw.gov.au/cp_themes/default/home.asp