The questions arose due to some verbal complaints made to Councillors on the water taste and to a report given to Council that the purification system was being operated manually.

Deficiencies in the automatic chlorination system became evident in January when Council’s contract service company identified difficulties with the meter mechanisms sending signals to the chlorinators.

The observed result of those faults was that the dosage of chlorine was higher than necessary (and higher than acceptable to consumers). A decision was made to operate the chlorinator manually whilst further repairs were carried out.

More detailed investigations over the next few months have progressively identified multiple deficiencies involving seven visits by the contract service people.

During the repairing phase and up to the present time operations have remained manually controlled.

Chlorine levels, usually tested each day have been monitored and no test has indicated levels outside the Health Department range. There have been some high and some low dosages, the high ones (3 per cent) mostly affecting water taste.

Routine quality and bacteriological test results carried out by Department of Health have been closely watched. Tests are done formally each two weeks (in accordance with Health Department standards).

Two results (one in January and another in March) were outside acceptable limits but subsequent testing proved satisfactory. Since the end of March all samples have been within acceptable standards for drinking water.

The report from the service personnel received on July 13 has now identified further faults and therefore as costs on the repairs necessary are rising and more repairs are identified, tenders for the supply and installation of a new system are about to be called.

The installation of the planned new equipment should be able to be completed by mid October.

Until the new equipment is installed close monitoring of the quality of water delivered to Braidwood is of the highest priority.