Murray River supplied pipeline systems - water quality

GWMWater supplies water to rural customers via various Murray River supplied pipeline systems.

On the eastern systems, where water is diverted from the river at Piangil, Nyah and Swan Hill the water passes through sand filters prior to being supplied to the distribution systems. Water that is sourced from Wemen is supplied into large balancing storages at Ouyen where settling can occur prior to being supplied to the township. Sand filters and storage settling time ensures that water that is supplied to rural customers and towns is of better quality than the source water.

This water is then supplied to tanks on rural properties where further settling of the water may occur prior to it being used. Because of this, the water used from tanks on rural properties should be of a better quality than what was originally supplied from the Murray River.

GWMWater also supplies this water to 17 towns. Water is pumped into storages at each town prior to the water being supplied to customers. These storages are usually open earthen storages or in the case of smaller towns, large tanks. Again, some settling occurs while this water is being stored prior to use.

In almost all cases, the quality of water that is supplied to the pipeline systems from the Murray River is not a true indication of the water that is received by the customers.

The townships of Ouyen and Underbool have water treatment plants and customers within these towns receive a fully treated drinking water supply. Water treatment plants effectively remove turbidity that exists in the raw water, therefore the fluctuations in the raw water quality does not impact on these urban customers.

Click here to view a graph that shows the turbidity of water in the Murray River prior to and after filtration. The water samples were taken from where we divert the raw water from the river, and again after it has passed through the sand filters and supplied to the Northern Mallee Pipeline System and Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Supply System 5.

The sample taken from the point of diversion is an accurate indication of the turbidity that exists in the stretch of river where several of GWMWater’s pump stations are sited.